pivoted in its socket and focused on the companions. Then it snapped shut.
“This is not as good as it could be,” Tezzeret said. He pointed to the door they had come in. Four of his chrome Phyrexians scrabbled to the doorway and hunched, waiting.
A part of the wall near the eye shook and a crease appeared, and then two tight lips opened to reveal sharp teeth. The teeth parted and the mouth, as large as Venser, opened wide. A shriek came from the mouth.
Tezzeret turned to Venser. “You have moments. That is an alarm.”
Venser looked back at the fleshling. He knew Elspeth wanted to take the thing, and that Koth did not. His would be the deciding vote.
“She is the only being I have ever met to have this natural ability,” Tezzeret said.
Venser knew he was right. Imagine the planes and people they could help if they could find out why she was immune. Imagine if Karn was infected and the fleshling could somehow bring him back to himself.
“She travels with us,” Venser said.
Koth stomped his foot.
“She has a long cut on her back,” Elspeth said, looking up from the fleshing. “I will try to at least close it so we can move.”
“Flee, I would say,” Tezzeret said. “Separately these creatures can be dealt with. But in the numbers that are rushing toward our location currently…” Tezzeret shrugged.
From the cavern on the other side of the doorway a muffled clatter broke the silence, then another.
Koth ran to the doorway. Venser went with him. Elspeth kneeled behind the fleshling, chanting. A milky glow radiated around the two. The chrome Phyrexians looked nervously over their shoulders at Elspeth, of all people. They fear the white warrior, Venser thought. But he had no time to ponder the question. A deep growling roar sounded on the other side of the doorway.
“I’ll go have a quick look,” Venser said. He closed his eyes. The mana moved into his ears and through his eye sockets and nose, sucking into his brain. In his mind’s eye he saw the location in the cavern. He imagined he was hopping and when the pop occurred in his ears he opened his eyes. He was standing in a far corner of the cavern. He could see the glowing doorway and the blue Phyrexians staring out. He looked to the right before snapping back into the doorway.
“There are many,” he said. “And some huge Phyrexian I have not seen before, with a white shell for a head and shoulders. It has many arms and a steely body and legs.”
Tezzeret was behind him. “A bastion,” he said.
“Is that good or bad?” Koth said.
“It is not good,” Tezzeret said. “It was once white. Those are the worst ones: the ones that were crusaders. If there is one, then there will be more.”
“I cannot close this wound,” Elspeth yelled from the other side of the room. The shriek continued, just high enough to stick in Venser’s ears and keep him from thinking quickly. “Keep trying,” he said. “Can we jump down the screaming mouth?” he said to Tezzeret.
“I don’t know,” Tezzeret said. “You might be able to. Watch the teeth.”
“You are leaving?”
“Oh, yes,” Tezzeret said. “I wanted only to give you this creature.”
More clatters sounded from the room. They sounded closer than before.
“But why?”
“I have my reasons for wanting the Phyrexian invasion to have to work hard. To perhaps encounter significant resistance.”
“Have you seen Karn?” Venser said. “We need to find Karn.”
Tezzeret nodded slowly, apparently thinking about the question Venser had just asked him. “Yes,” he said finally. “I have seen the silver golem.”
Venser waited. “Where is he?”
“He is in his throne room, of course,” Tezzeret said.
“Where?” Venser said.
“Deeper still. At the heart of this metal clockworks.”
At that moment there was a tremendous rattle in the cavern outside the experimentation room. The Phyrexians at the doorway rushed out, followed by Koth. Venser and Tezzeret were last.
The room outside the doorway was filled with Phyrexians of all shapes and sizes. Three creatures with white porcelain crusts for heads towered over the rest, four arms hanging at their sides. Tezzeret’s chrome Phyrexians were already tearing into some of the closest creatures. Koth was glowing red and mucking up to his elbows in the thorax of another beast that, as they watched, fell back, a gaping red hole in its chest.
Venser blinked and appeared on the shoulders of one of the bastions. He pulled mana to him and when it was prickling his fingertips, he spread the back of the creature’s porcelain shell and reached in. He was never sure what he was touching, what metal parts, in the Phyrexians, but he dissolved whatever it was. Eventually the creature took a staggered step forward, and then fell limp.
Venser blinked away and back to the doorway before he hit the ground. Tezzeret had not moved.
“Impressive,” he said.
“But we cannot fight that army,” Venser said. “We need a way out.”
Tezzeret sighed, and walked back into the experimentation room. The mouth in the far wall continued screaming. It was all Venser could do to not clap his hands over his ears. Elspeth was still kneeling and chanting, with her hands on the fleshling. The sound of the fray outside the doorway was a loud rumble.
Tezzeret touched the wall, and another mouth opened. The mouth had no teeth. Venser, strangely, found himself feeling uneasy at the prospect of being swallowed by a toothless mouth.
“I’m not altogether sure where this one goes,” Tezzeret said. “But in general the ones without teeth go upward. The larger the teeth the deeper the way goes. At least I’ve found that mostly to be true. Go to the furnace layer. That is over and up. The heat will tell you.”
“Thank you,” Venser said.
“No,” Tezzeret said. “You have helped me more than you know. I would not have helped you otherwise.”
A shriek from outside the doorway drew their attention.
“I will not remain around here to meet that,” Tezzeret said.
With that, Tezzeret touched the wall and an extremely long-toothed mouth opened wide. He turned and winked at Venser before stepping in. Venser couldn’t help but wonder if Tezzeret was at that moment traveling to Karn’s throne room. He almost asked if he could accompany him. But the moment passed and Tezzeret was gone. After a couple of seconds the mouth closed.
Elspeth stirred. “I cannot fully heal this wound,” she said. “It is too deep. I do not know if something vital was removed. The best I can do is close it so we can travel.”
“So she can move?”
“Not by herself. We will have to assist her.”
He nodded. “Well, that would be our mouth,” he said, pointing at the toothless maw.
Venser walked across the room and looked out at the cavern. More Phyrexians had arrived. Tezzeret’s chromes were still fighting hard, but their numbers were halved. As Venser watched, one of them received the huge ball arm from a huge Phyrexian on the top of its head. The head crushed down and the Phyrexian stopped moving and crumpled. Koth was as red as an ember, taking great, heaping handfuls of metal out of a Phyrexian three times his size. The metal went from molten to slag the moment it left the vulshok’s hand and fell clanking to the metal floor.
When the Phyrexian fell, Venser yelled and beckoned Koth, who followed. The heat that he gave off as he approached made Venser step back.
“We’re going now,” Venser said.
“What? With all this fun to be had?” Koth said.
But he followed. Elspeth helped the fleshling to her feet. With her arm over Elspeth’s shoulders, the white warrior led her to the mouth Venser had pointed out. The fleshling did not look good to Venser’s eyes. She was pale and drawn. Her hair was dirty and infested with something that matted the locks. Bugs, he could not stand bugs- especially the ones that lived on the human body. But Mirrodin would not have bugs. Mirrodin would have something
