like bugs, but infinitely worse. A small shiver ran down Venser’s spine as he stepped up to the toothless mouth, waiting.
Koth noticed the shiver, apparently, and interpreted it as disgust of the mouth. “Don’t like the look of this one myself,” he said.
Venser glanced at Koth before he understood. “Oh, yes, the etherium-arm creature said the ones without teeth lead upward.”
“Don’t know if I trust that one.”
“I know I do not,” Venser said, smiling.
Koth nodded. The walls buckled somehow and a sound even more terrible than the screaming mouth rent the air. A sound like shells crushed under foot. Or skulls. The whine and snap of metal breaking came from the next room, and then the clank of many feet rushing over metal.
“We go now,” Venser said. Just as he spoke the mouth began to close. Koth stepped forward and seized the lips and with some effort wrenched them wider. Elspeth and the fleshing stepped into the mouth.
“This will hurt,” Elspeth was telling the fleshling as they disappeared into the maw.
“You go,” Koth said, when Venser gestured for the vulshok to go.
“Go ahead.”
Just as a bleeding Phyrexian stuck its small head into the doorway leading to the cavern-
Venser jumped head first into the oral cavity.
The sensation was different with the toothless mouth. It was tighter and slower. Many times Venser felt his breath would not hold out as the throat carried him upward in the way a snake might move its prey down the length of it. He found he could breathe better if he brought his arm up and held the bend of it over his eyes, creating a small air pocket. It was not comfortable, nobody would ever say that, but at least he did not feel like he was drowning. At one point he stopped. For that terrible time Venser was sure the Phyrexian whose mouth they were in knew a way to force regurgitation. But that did not happen and eventually he started moving again. The turns were few and Venser was glad for that, as they squeezed his body even more. After what seemed like forever, he was spit out and lay panting on the floor. Elspeth and the fleshling were leaning against the wall. But the wall was strange and bending, and neither Elspeth nor the fleshling looked comfortable.
The room was small, almost tiny. If Venser had ever imagined what it would be like to be inside a stomach, that would have been what he imagined. It was roughly circular and soft all over. The hole they had all been spit from opened again and pushed out Koth, who lay panting in the goo that covered them all.
“It’s like being born again,” the vulshok said, when he had his breath. Venser could not help but chuckle. Elspeth smiled. The fleshling blinked.
Venser touched the wall. Nothing happened. There were no other doors, just the tiny room. It seemed to get smaller after Venser touched the wall. He went to another side and touched the wall again. A mouth opened. A mouth with teeth.
“Try the other wall,” Koth said.
Venser did, and a toothless mouth creased into existence.
“How is it there are mouths now when there were round, lidded doorways before?” Elspeth said. “When we started this trip.”
Venser shrugged. “I think we are deeper than we were when we started. It seems we travel inside Phyrexians after we pass some point. That would be my guess.”
But the mouth that had carried them out opened. From down its gullet, they heard the struggling cries of many Phyrexians.
“They are coming up after us,” Koth said.
The next mouth appeared the same as the last they had used, and Elspeth went first. Koth followed and then Venser.
The trip was much the same as before, only longer. The mouth dropped them in a small fleshy room with a doorway into another vast cavern, the walls of which were covered in pipes and tubes.
The temperature was noticeably hotter. A glow emanated from far away across the cavern, and they walked that way. The fleshling walked between Elspeth and Koth, with her arms over both of their shoulders. Venser would not get too near the unwashed human.
They walked until Elspeth called a halt. The glow in the room only lit the lower portions, but upper reaches were dark. It was into that darkness that Elspeth pointed.
“What is that?” Elspeth said.
Venser squinted into the darkness. High up in the shadows a small form moved. It appeared to be flapping, but was very small and far away. As his eyes became accustomed to peering into the darkness, another form flapped itself into focus. Still another small thing was flying lower and the artificer made out its general form. It was very small, about as long as the last digit of his thumb. It had fleshy, beige membranes that it flapped, trailing bits of itself behind. Its body was round and oval shaped.
Next to Venser, Koth stared up at the same form. “It can’t be,” he said.
“What?” Elspeth said, looking at the vulshok.
“It’s impossible.”
“Do speak, vulshok,” Venser said, staring at Koth.
“That,” Koth said, “is a blinkmoth, unless I am a fool.”
“I will not comment on whether or not you are a fool,” Venser said, looking back at the strangely saggy little form flying at the edge of the darkness above. He had heard of the elusive creatures, of course, from Karn. He even happened to know that the drink he took to stave off the palsy contained some of their potent distillate.
They were farmed to near extinction long ago, Karn had told him. He had also told him how sad it made him that the only native life-form on Mirrodin had been used so poorly. But looking upon the rare creatures all he could think was how ugly they looked.
“How many are there up there?” Elspeth said.
Koth was beyond words, staring up at the moths.
“Four perhaps,” Venser said. “Should we see? I think we can risk some light.” Without waiting for an answer, Venser snapped a blue wisp into existence. He flung it up. The strand traveled up and up, and up some more. The ceiling was exceedingly high, but soon the wisp stopped. Venser concentrated on it and it began to glow brightly.
“Blazing ore!” Koth hissed.
The entire upper portion of the cavern was thick with the moths, flapping and bumping into one another. Koth looked around the room.
“Was this a farm?” he said. “I did not know they existed underground. They are never found in numbers such as this anymore. Never.” He looked back to the blinkmoths.
“They are the only natives to this place and were made by Karn’s hand,” Venser said. “Therefore, they are living manifestations of his creative essence.”
“Well, they do not fill me with awe,” Elspeth said. She squinted at the other side of the huge space. “They are rather runty little things, in fact.” She kept squinting.
“They were supposed to be gone long ago,” Koth said. “Gone to vedalken harvest.”
“They live, all right,” Elspeth said. “It is us I worry about. I see shapes advancing on us.”
Koth’s eyes instantly turned to where Elspeth was staring. Many dark shapes no larger than the blinkmoths were loping toward them across the wide room.
“They are Phyrexians,” Venser said, still watching the blinkmoths. The more he watched them the more he wanted some of his potion. The more his chin began to shake.
“How do you know?” It was Koth who spoke.
“I can feel their metal feet vibrating the floor.”
The others were quiet as they felt for the vibrations. The floor trembled under their feet.
“There are very many of them,” Koth said.
They were advancing from all sides, and in large numbers. The Phyrexians surged toward the island of blue light cast by Venser’s wisps.
Koth was already as red as an ember. He cracked his neck and stretched his arms behind his back in preparation. Elspeth’s sword was out. She held it loosely at her side watching the howling hoard advance on them.
