They kept running. Sometimes the Phyrexians sounded far away. Sometimes they sounded as if they were in the same passage. They kept running. Eventually the walls took on different lines of color. Some of the rings were yellow and others were green. They looked like minerals and base metals. At one point Venser stopped running and touched a wetted finger to one of the rough lines. He put the finger in his mouth, then spat.
“Valatitium,” Venser said. “This is found on other planes.”
Koth stopped and looked at the line of yellow. “These are deposits,” he said. “If the vulshok could delve this deep we could haul quite a lot of good minerals and metal.”
“Keep running,” the guide yelled.
But soon Venser could not run anymore. He stopped again. The Phyrexians had dropped back, farther than they had been. Still, their banging movements were clearly audible.
“We cannot stop,” The guide said. “There are branches ahead that may afford us a way to lose our pursuers.”
“I cannot run anymore,” Venser said. His legs were so tired that he sat hard on the floor. He had run so hard that his lungs burned and a metallic taste was at the back of his throat. “I cannot.”
“You must,” the guide said.
But Venser’s eyes were on the color bands in the wall. There was a new color he had not seen before. He inched closer to the wall and put a finger to it. A bit of the color crumbled easily at his touch. Venser turned to Koth.
“Do you know this mineral?” Venser said.
“We call it ker,” Koth said.
“I know it as kaachmine,” Venser said, his mind racing. He suddenly snapped his fingers. “We need to collect as much of it as we can.” He took out the knife that lay in his boot and began chipping chunks of ker from the wall. It came off easily.
“We must go,” the guide said.
“Stand away,” Venser said.
As he worked, Koth glowed slightly. Venser noticed it and frowned. “Don’t get hot around this material,” Venser said.
“Let us run,” Elspeth said.
“I have no more energy or mana,” Venser said, as he crumbled some of the ker chunks into powder. “If this works, it will require neither of those.”
By the time he had a good-sized pile, the Phyrexians were quite near, their thrashing made them sound like they were in the next passage.
Venser led Elspeth, the fleshling, and the guide down the passage. Koth stayed near the pile. When the rest of them were a good distance down the passage, Venser pushed each one of them into a depression in the wall, and then waved to Koth.
The vulshok tore a strip off his cloth shirt. He wound the strand of cloth up tight and placed one piece in the pile of ker, which reached to the height of his knee. He trailed the other end of the cloth away from the pile.
Then the Phyrexians appeared at the end of the passage. When Koth saw them he casually leaned over the end of the cloth. He made a motion, and sparks flew off the flint and steel in his hand. Soon he’d lit the end of the cloth, which flamed strangely well. As it burned, Koth backed up carefully, watching to see if it would go out. When it was obvious that the flame had caught and caught well on the fabric, Koth turned and sprinted faster than anyone had ever seen him run. The Phyrexians, seeing him running, bounded ahead.
“Down,” Venser yelled.
There was a huge pop and a whoosh of air, and in the next moment Venser found himself facedown on the metal floor, far from where he had been standing. He shook his head as he sat up. A high ringing filled his skull. Nearby Elspeth was already on her feet and looking down at him. Her mouth was moving, but Venser could not hear any of her words.
Where the mound of ker had been, there was only the tangled mass of many parts of many more Phyrexians. Venser doubted if he could climb over the pile, it was so high. Some of the enemy had been torn asunder while others had their metal parts melted to the floor. All was still.
Elspeth put out her hand and helped Venser to his feet. The guide was mysteriously on his feet and unscathed. Elspeth had black powder burns on her arm and face. Venser could only imagine how he looked. If how he felt was any indication, then it was bad indeed. His head still hurt from the attack that had dented his helmet, as the ringing in his ears began to subside, he felt like lying down and sleeping for sixty rotations of a Dominaria sun.
But it wasn’t to be. From beyond the heap of destroyed Phyrexians came a series of grunting gags that sounded very much alive.
Venser turned to Elspeth. He was the very essence of depleted. He had nothing left. Well, he had the knife he kept in his boot with which to fight off all attackers. So, really, he had nothing. Even Elspeth, who was always willing to slay Phyrexians, looked around helplessly.
“Did you hear that?” Venser could once again hear himself speak, though the echoing in his skull sounded strange. He could more feel his words’ echo than properly hear them.
Elspeth was looking around. “Where is Koth?” she said.
They found him farther down the passage, lying on his side, groaning. A piece of twisted metal, which could have fit on a Phyrexian, had pierced the side of his abdomen.
Elspeth carefully took hold of the piece of metal and yanked it out. Koth grunted through gritted teeth. The piece was slathered with blood and Elspeth threw it clattering away. Koth relaxed and rolled over on his back. From behind them another Phyrexian call echoed.
“What will happen now?” Venser asked. “Perhaps the guide can fight off the Phyrexians and heal Koth?”
Elspeth did not laugh. She looked far too tired to laugh, Venser thought.
Instead she took a lanyard from around her neck. At the end of the lanyard was a small bottle. “You aren’t the only one with a bottle,” she said.
A Phyrexian call cut the air very close by. When Venser looked back, one of the enemy was standing atop the pile of its brethren. Venser held his breath as he waited for more of them to come streaming around that one. He kept waiting. He stood, and the Phyrexian on the pile-one of the ones swathed in layers of black, pitted metal and with a tiny, almost skeletal head bobbing on a thin neck-thought better of things and retreated, dragging its claws as it did.
“I saw only one,” Venser reported. Nobody responded. Elspeth had just poured some of her elixir into Koth’s mouth. The vulshok lay back and closed his eyes.
“Did you deliver him from misery?” Venser said, after a moment.
Elspeth’s face took on a look of horror. “No, you imbecile. I am sworn never to do what you speak of. He is healing from the inside.”
Koth opened his eyes. “I took her before,” he said, looking at the fleshling, who regarded him with a blank expression. “I took her to go with me to the surface. I’m sorry.”
“That is not something to worry about now,” Elspeth said.
We’ll worry about it later, Venser thought. Rest assured about that.
“I only wanted to help my people, who hate me,” Koth said.
“Yes,” Elspeth said. “We knew you were trying to help.”
The single Phyrexian called again from behind. That time a second Phyrexian responded from somewhere farther away. Then they heard the faint screech of another.
Koth heard it too. His eyes popped open and he tried to sit up. Elspeth pushed him back down. “What I gave you is speeding your body’s healing process, but it will still take a bit of time.”
Venser waited for her to elaborate, or for someone to ask how long it would take, but the guide and the fleshling stared down at Koth as though he were some new and exotic creature they had never seen before. Nobody appeared to be about to ask any sort of question. One thing was for sure, Venser was not carrying the vulshok who had tried to steal what they were lucky enough to have. Venser looked over at the fleshling, who was still staring down at Koth. What was going on in that one’s head, he wondered. He had yet to catch her with any expression showing itself on her smooth face. She almost never spoke. What was wrong with her? He had considered performing an exploration of her brain, but such an exploration took time and energy and he did not have much of
