“It is Venser of Urborg.”
“Venser of Urborg,” the voice repeated uncertainly.
“From not so long ago,” Venser said.
“Yes,” Karn said. “I sent somebody for you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I sent a guide to lead you to me, but I cannot remember why.”
Venser looked to his side, where the guide was staring up at the top of the column with rapt fascination.
There was a terrific clatter as something began moving at the top of the column. Before their eyes, the column began coming apart. Venser stepped back. He noticed small, dark creatures that had been holding the sections of the column on their backs lowering the sections downward, hand to hand. Each of them was a duplicate of the small silver creature they had all followed down into the depths below the Vault of Whispers. Soon the last section of column was set vertically on the floor. A silver figure began climbing down a small ladder built into the metal of that section of column. The large figure was dwarfed beside the huge column it climbed down. It stopped midway down the ladder and launched into a series of violent convulsions before letting go of the rungs and falling the rest of the way to the metal floor.
Venser rushed over. The silver golem was lying on the floor inside the dent it had created by falling. Venser noticed the other, similar dents in the floor.
The golem’s eyes were silver slits and his wide jaw was thrust out. Karn reached out, took a handful of the metal floor as though it were dough, and pulled himself to his feet, where he stood looking down at Venser. Venser noticed with unease that the silver golem was smeared with black oil. What appeared to be droplets of the material dotted his silver body. Venser forced himself to smile. “We have been searching for you, old friend.”
Karn frowned down at Venser. “You are here to destroy me, I know this.”
Venser held up the palms of his hands. “That is not true.”
“You want to,” Karn shook his head once before continuing. “You want me to become a Phyrexian.”
“We want just the opposite,” Venser said.
“We want you to leave,” Koth cut in.
Venser ignored the vulshok. “We do not want you to leave,” Venser said. “We are here to heal the sickness you have.”
“I am not sick,” Karn said. “I should crush you for saying such.”
“Then leave, why don’t you,” Koth said. “Go away, you are not wanted here.”
Venser stepped closer to Karn. “Karn, it is I-your old student and friend.”
But Karn’s eyes popped open wide and his metallic nostrils flared. “You dare approach,” he shoved Venser, who flew back skittering across the floor and into a wall.
“Now you really are going to leave,” Koth said, “in pieces if possible.”
Koth grabbed one of Karn’s arms and yanked him off his feet. The silver golem looked bewildered as Koth took a step, pivoted, and threw Karn down and onto his back. He hopped onto Karn’s chest and his hand went white-hot in a blink. Koth moved to plunge his hand into Karn’s chest, but Elspeth held his arm back at the bicep. Koth struggled to free himself, but Elspeth had better purchase and was able to keep the arm back.
Karn’s face had once again pinched itself into a malevolent expression. He brought his knee up and slammed Koth in the back, sending him over the golem’s head and into wall, where the geomancer lay still.
With the fluidity of a snake, Karn hopped to his feet and stood facing Elspeth. “They are almost here,” Karn said. “When they arrive I will let my children have their way with you,” he said. His slit eyes moved to the fleshling, who was standing next to Elspeth. “They like skin you know.”
“Stop.”
Venser hobbled up to them. By its strange angle, Elspeth could tell Venser’s left arm was broken. The dented helmet was still under his arm. He stepped to Karn’s side. Karn raised his arm to strike when he saw Venser. But the artificer did not cringe.
“Remember our time together, Karn?” Venser said. “Do you remember exploring the Valley of Echoes? Where we found those scrolls and I could not read the writing, but you could somehow?”
The golem’s face softened. He lowered his arm. “I do not remember that, but I should like to.”
“You are Karn,” Venser said.
“… Father of Machines,” Karn boomed. The echo vibrated the walls.
“No,” Venser said, when the walls had stilled. “The creator of Mirrodin. You are powerful and kind.”
Koth’s crumpled form stirred.
“We are here to heal you from what is attacking you,” Elspeth said.
Confusion spread across Karn’s face, and then in a moment the expression changed again. “Or maybe you will help hold up my column.” Karn reached out and clamped his large hands on Elspeth’s head, one hand on each ear. She struggled, but the silver golem’s grip was immovable. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again they were black and glowing.
“Tell me what you remember of your childhood,” the fleshling said.
The fleshling’s words were not loud, but the strangeness of their context stopped everybody.
Karn blinked and his eyes went back to silver.
“What?” he said.
“Your childhood,” the fleshling repeated. “Tell me about that.”
“My childhood?” Karn said. “Did I have one? I cannot remember.”
Venser glanced uneasily at the fleshling.
“When I was a boy,” Venser volunteered. “We knew of this swamp…”
“Tell me about when you learned that all flesh dies,” the fleshling interrupted.
Venser had seen the fleshling in the camp, when she had been healing the people who lived there. He remembered watching her whispering to them. Was this what she was asking them? Questions about their childhoods? Still, if it could help Karn. Venser thought back to when he was a child.
“It must have been when my father never returned.”
The fleshling nodded. “Tell me about that.”
“He went out one day into the swamps to work,” Venser started. “And he simply never came back.” To Venser’s amazement and embarrassment, his voice suddenly broke as he spoke. He suddenly remembered vividly what that felt like, being that boy again and being alone.
“And you knew, someday you would also not come back?”
“Yes, I missed him and I did not want that to happen to him, or to me,” Venser said. His father’s disappearance had set in motion a series of events that changed him forever. He and his mother had had to stay with his aunt, and the man who lived with his aunt. He ran away not so very long after that.
He could feel them now, the tears. They were hot on his cheek but cooled quickly. Venser suddenly became very aware that everybody in the room was looking at him, and he wiped the tears away with the heel of his palm.
“We are not machines,” the fleshling said. “The real secret the Phyrexians are trying to hide by keeping me in captivity is that flesh is stronger than metal. They are obsessed with flesh for this reason. They cannot copy the strength. This is a secret they do not want known.”
Venser could see a change occurring in the fleshling’s eyes. They began to glow strongly with a blue and then a green light. Very soon the air went thick with light and an intense buzz wormed into Venser’s ears. The fleshling laid her gaze on Karn. The colored air between them began to bend and distort and her smooth brow furrowed in concentration.
Venser had seen it happen from far away, but being so close, he felt the power radiating from the fleshling’s sweaty visage. Her chin began to quiver as he watched.
Karn yawned.
The fleshling blinked.
“What happens now?” Venser said.
“Do you feel different?” Elspeth said to Karn.
The silver golem’s eyes narrowed as the black oil droplets popped out all over the metal of his body. “Why would I feel different?”
