“I will not tell you that, of course.”
Venser said nothing.
“You are all very tired,” Tezzeret said. “We will stop to sleep as soon as we gain entry into the inter-ways. They will take us over and down deep under the furnace layer, where the contagion is having less luck incorporating the mindset of its denizens.”
After more walking they arrived at a wall of metal. It was absolutely smooth and extended up into darkness. The chrome Phyrexians stood dripping fluids as Tezzeret stepped forward and made a sweeping motion with his arm. An opening appeared in the wall. The metal Tezzeret had removed hung against the wall, quivering in the glowing blue light from the chrome Phyrexians. They went first, jerking and convulsing through the hole and into the darkness on the other side.
Later, after a series of other doors leading into passages that smelled more or less like rotted meat, Tezzeret raised his hand, halting the group. They were in a room small enough that Venser could actually see the far and the near wall at the same time. It had the advantage of being low, with a ceiling that extended only a few feet above his helmet. Some of the Phyrexians had to crouch. One with the long legs of a spider was dragged by its comrades.
Tezzeret turned to the party. “This is the place for sleep.”
Venser fell onto the metal floor and was asleep in moments. He dreamed of night watches. He dreamed that it was his watch. Suddenly Phyrexians made of flesh appeared all around him with blood dripping from their eyes. One seized him around the neck.
He woke to Elspeth shaking him.
“What is it?”
“Our guide is gone,” she said.
Venser sat up. “Where?” He looked around in the pale glow from Koth, who sat leaning against the far wall, watching him with an unreadable expression. Venser stood. “Did anyone see him leave?”
Nobody said anything.
“We’re really in it now,” Koth said. “You’ve got us down here and now even I don’t have a clue where we are.”
Like he ever knew where we were, Venser thought. But he did not speak.
The tone in the vulshok’s voice became more caustic. “None of this would have happened if I had been leading,” Koth said.
“No,” Venser said. “We would be squatting in some hole on the surface watching people die as they fought the invasion.”
“It’s an honest way to die,” Koth said.
“I don’t know if there is such a thing.”
Koth was silent a moment. “Well, I don’t trust this one leading us, do you, Elspeth?” Koth turned to Elspeth, who was standing a bit back, gazing into her sword’s shiny surface. At the mention of her name she sheathed her sword.
“I do not …” she said, “trust friends of mine enemy.”
Venser heard the creak of metal and raised his hand to stop their speaking. Moments later there was another creak and a grind and the blue Phyrexians appeared in a line in the darkness. Some of the Phyrexians glanced at one another and then back at Venser. Tezzeret was behind them.
“We have done a bit of scouting,” Tezzeret said.
“Or trap planning,” Koth muttered under his breath.
If Tezzeret heard Koth, he did not acknowledge it. He simply turned and began walking. The blue Phyrexians split and actually bowed as the companions passed between them. Koth and Elspeth looked at each other in confusion.
They walked through another hidden door, and through one that was already opened. As they moved, Venser became suddenly sure that they were moving downward, though never did they descend stair or tunnel. Then they came to a strange wall where Tezzeret stopped and waited for the group to catch up. Venser stood staring at the wall, if one could call it a wall. He realized it was more of a body.
Fibers were stretched over protrusions and bound off to other bulges, creating a taut sweep that reminded Venser strongly of muscles without the covering of skin. This impression was heightened when he touched it and the wall trembled. Tezzeret turned and glanced at him.
“Did you touch it?”
“I did,” Venser said.
“It feels interesting, yes?”
“What is it?”
“A Phyrexian.”
Venser nodded. The others were approaching out of the darkness, but he had something to ask. “You mentioned before that the taint was having trouble with the furnace layer, whatever that is.”
“That is true,” Tezzeret said, brushing an unseen something off his sleeve.
“What did you mean?”
Tezzeret looked at him strangely, with a small smile curling the corner of his mouth. “They are gaining sentience somehow, all of these creatures, you know. It is a limited sentience, but they are beginning to understand that they exist and can die. This seems to have changed some. We … I am unsure if this change is only found in the denizens of that red layer, or if there has somehow been another dissident mindset injected into the group. It is hard to say.”
“How are you privy to this kind of information?”
“I am involved with certain aspects of the centrality of this infestation.”
“So why are you helping us?” Venser said. “Couldn’t you drop yourself into tremendous trouble?”
“That is one possibility.”
Venser glanced at the wall. An eye as large as his whole body was opened next to him. The cornea and slit iris were black, and it was staring directly at him. Venser took a step back. “Where is the mouth?” he said after a moment.
“We will be moving through it shortly,” Tezzeret said.
Elspeth and Koth followed the chrome Phyrexians. Tezzeret pulled his breastplate down, revealing his bare chest. A glass vial hung by a thick lanyard around his neck.
“Would you take it?” Tezzeret asked Venser. “I cannot touch it.”
“But it is touching your …” Elspeth started.
“My flesh, I know,” Tezzeret said, as Venser looped the lanyard over Tezzeret’s head. “But my etherium arm.”
Venser held the vial up to the glow of the Phyrexians. “What is it?”
Tezzeret took the vial and opened it with his flesh arm. He dabbed his finger on it and touched his forehead with the dab. Then he handed it to Venser, who did the same. Elspeth followed. Koth smelled it and curled his nose.
“This smells like rot,” he said.
“It is the essence of Phyrexian,” Tezzeret said. “But do not worry. It is not infectious in itself.”
Koth dabbed his forehead.
“Well, now we can take the next step,” he tapped the muscles of the wall and suddenly a line creased and the muscle spread to reveal innards: long, twisting metal pipes and strange, small organs hanging like wet fruit. Out of the hanging muck on the wall, a mouth yawned wide. The many teeth crowded in the mouth were chipped and filed down, from the passing of many bodies, Venser assumed. He could see that they had been sharp enough once though.
“Why is the mouth under the skin?” Koth said.
Tezzeret stepped back and smiled his small smile. “Well then, who will be first?”
No one moved.
“Only making a joke,” Tezzeret said. He stepped forward to the mouth, which was pulled open so wide that what passed for lips were stretched and cracked.
Tezzeret looked back over his shoulder. “Whatever you do, keep your arms in.”
