to the Phyrexians, who lacked simple common sense. She aided them. Even though they did not speak, they followed her for some reason, maybe because she had been there so long that they saw her as part of the prison and not a fun toy to be experimented upon. But she saw it all. Every horrible thing that can be done to a human.
“Children are children,” Venser said.
Elspeth blinked. If he only knew. Perhaps he should. It had been with her for so long, carried on her shoulders during all her travels so that, perhaps, with almost certain death approaching, she should relieve herself of the weight.
“When they became interested in me, I would divert their attention by pointing out better candidates to be experimented on. Sometimes women, even children. Old men. They all cried. They all wailed.” She felt like covering her ears from the wailing she heard when she closed her eyes to sleep at night, the same sound she heard first thing when she woke.
Words had escaped Venser. He opened his mouth to say something, only to close it again.
She could tell by his shocked expression that he was expecting another story-perhaps the story of the brave child helping the other prisoners, only to end up the subject of experimentation herself. Truth was, she managed to evade being cut or molested in any way. Countless others took that burden for her. And the children were the cries that stayed with her the longest.
Sound came back to Venser’s lips. “How did you escape?”
“I escaped,” she gulped. “By cutting open a large corpse and slipping inside and staying still in its reek until it was tossed into the rot heap. I was small and still the fit was tight.” She didn’t tell him that it took many days for the Phyrexians to move the corpse; they were not good housekeepers. She lay in the corpse for at least two days, but it could have been more. She was almost dead herself of thirst when she finally crawled out. But the smell never left her. It was always in her nose, waking her in the morning and turning her stomach and making it difficult to eat.
“But you survived,” Venser stammered. “You persevered. You were unbeaten.”
“Unbeaten,” Elspeth said hollowly.
Venser looked away, out to the darkness. She could see the evident disgust on his face. Still, there was a certain lightness building in her stomach. “I can tell you more,” she said.
Venser shook his head. “I have heard enough.” He turned back to the Phyrexians. They watched the revolting combination of decomposing metal and sinewy flesh of all shapes and sizes march from the holes. Elspeth found herself wondering where they all slept, and how. Were they able to talk to each other? Her time in one of their prisons had not left her with a strong impulse of find out more about the Phyrexians. They were the essence of cruelty, with a child’s desire to experiment and play.
She glanced away from Venser’s eyes at the Phyrexians. One tripped and fell and the one behind it stepped squarely on its head and laughed its chortling laugh. “It seems to me that their numbers are decreasing,” she said.
Venser peered back over the edge of the divot they were sheltering in. The dark smudge of the main body of the Phyrexians was spread out in the green haze filling the large valley.
“Are you ready?” Venser said. Without waiting for an answer, the artificer began crawling down the slough after Koth.
Chapter 4
The experimentation room looked as it had before, with one exception. On the far wall as they entered was an area where the wet gut-works had been spread. A hole was revealed. Koth was squatting next to it with a smile on his face.
“Something is guiding us,” he said.
Venser stepped closer, and suddenly a shake caught him. He put his hand out to the wall, and it sunk into the wetness. Venser lurched sideways and fell to his knees, shaking over half his body. From experience he knew to wait. When enough time had passed, and Venser could open and close his fingers, he struggled to his feet. The others watched him wide-eyed.
“We will not speak of this,” Venser said. “It happens sometimes.”
“But why?” Elspeth said.
“It happens because of my foolishness. Because of a great mistake I made.”
They moved through the darkness, skidding their feet across the strangely smooth floor for a long time without the least sense of where they were going.
“Can we dare light?” Elspeth whispered.
Venser nodded.
It took Elspeth some moments to cull the mana she needed in that black place, but eventually her suit of armor began to glow slightly and they could see more of their surroundings.
“I hear its movements ahead,” Koth whispered. “This is the way.”
“It makes me nervous to follow something I’ve never met,” Venser said.
A loud hissing sound broke the stillness behind them. Elspeth dropped the charm on her armor, and the light blinked out. Shadows were moving in a passage in front of them.
The passageway opened into a very large cavern. An eerie green light filtered weakly to the edges of the large space. At the far end a group of beings stood, tapping on the wall with their knuckles or whatever they had that passed for knuckles. They were Phyrexians, yes, but somehow different. They moved with the jerky, sudden movements of the Phyrexians-had the same frantic speed and carelessness as they bumped into one another, seeking something in haste.
“Are they sick?” Elspeth said.
“Vampires,” Venser whispered. “Succumbing to phyresis.”
Elspeth nodded at that, and tried hard not to let Venser sense her disgust.
Standing a bit back was their leader. The first thing that struck Venser was the size of the being. Its body was a massive shell of flesh and metal, one substance wound into another, with jags of metal jutting off the carapace. Two huge, tipped claws hung on robust arms at its sides. And the head, the head looked tiny atop the mountainous torso. A black line of hair ran from the front forehead in a crest to the back.
“Keep looking,” the leader yelled.
Venser watched the leader very carefully-when he walked, his body jerked to the side and the head was momentarily sideways.
The creatures kept knocking on the walls and floor until at last one of the Phyrexian vampires found what they were looking for. They all bent around something on the floor, until the leader lumbered over. They moved out of the way and he looked down at the floor with eyes that glittered in the low light, even from where Venser was standing across the room.
“Pull it up,” he said.
“Yes, Master Geth,” one of the Phyrexians hissed.
It was a door, but one that had to be torn from the floor. Ragged, bloody flaps of skin hung around the door’s circumference when it was raised.
“Get moving,” Master Geth bellowed suddenly. “The silver one’s temper makes mine look pleasant. Move.”
The silver one, Venser thought. Was he making reference to the silver creeper they were following, or was it the silver golem Geth?
The Phyrexians dropped one at a time down the trap door. Geth kicked the last one, sending him careening through the hole. Before Geth stepped into the secret door, he looked around the room. Venser jerked his head back, but for a moment Geth’s eyes froze in his direction. Eventually he turned and hopped down the hole.
Venser and the others poked their heads around the corner, just in time to see a small silver form slip down the hole, after Geth.
