trust them to move where he told them. His heels banged on the floor rhythmically and his neck was jerking his chin back and forth. A blinkmoth crawled down his neck.
The fleshling was standing above him in the dimness, her eyes glowing a slight blue as she looked down at the artificer. Even in his state, Venser knew that the fleshling’s eyes were not glowing before he had teleported with her. His trembling continued until suddenly it stopped. He lay gasping and exhausted until the last tremors finally left. It had never been that bad, even after that first teleport that caused the whole mess.
Still the fleshling stared down at Venser with her blue eyes glowing impassively. “I can feel the blinkmoths inside me,” the fleshling said. “I can feel them flying in my skull.”
There was a certain calmness to her that put Venser in mind of Karn. She was telling him there were moths in her skull as calmly as she might that she preferred cloudy skies to sunny.
“I feel … different,” she said.
“I also do,” Venser said. It was true. He felt much worse than he had before. Plus, his right hand would not totally stop shaking. Even if he concentrated, it would not stop. Concentration always stopped it in the past.
Venser managed to push himself up off the floor. His head spun and he sat down hard. Still the fleshling watched him. “Help me up,” Venser said.
She bent and took Venser’s hand and helped him to his feet. He felt awful, like his brain was still half- materialized in his head. He knew that each teleport made his condition worse, but it was a drastic worsening of symptoms.
“You are wounded?” the fleshling said, cocking her head to the side as she waited for the answer.
“Yes. Are you?”
“No,” the fleshling said. “I feel every pore in my body.”
“And what do they feel like?”
“They feel like they are dancing.”
Unfortunately, Venser realized exactly what she was describing. He had felt it after he started drinking his potion. He had not felt that strong a reaction since he started depending on it.
Something screamed and they turned in time to see Elspeth hammer her blade down on the head of a large Phyrexian. As they watched, the creature’s two parts peeled apart to the chest, and it fell back, kicking. It was the last of the beasts, and Elspeth put her sword tip down and leaned heavily on it, gasping for air, her shoulders stooped.
Koth was lying on his back with his arms and legs splayed, huffing. The bodies of the fallen enemy lay in stinking piles all around. The far-away glowing side of the cavern flickered.
Venser stood unsteadily.
“We must walk,” the fleshling said. “We must.” She turned and began walking toward the glow. Elspeth nodded and began stumbling after the fleshling, unbelievably dragging her sword behind her. Venser followed. Koth stood up from the floor and ambled after them.
They slept where they fell, each taking turns on watch. When Venser woke he went looking for water pools left from the dripping of the upper levels. He found some shallow pools to drink from. The others woke and Venser showed them the pools and then they all walked on, clanking steps on the metal floor.
Venser’s hand was still shaking, and he kept it out of sight from the others. The fleshling’s eyes were still glowing, and Elspeth and Koth, Venser noticed, did not move too close to her.
Time meant nothing in the dim cave, lit from the far-off glow. Without a sun or a moon it was impossible to keep track of time. But to Venser it seemed as though they walked for hours, perhaps days. Twice they stopped their march to sleep. Once they found a small pool rippling with warm, stagnant water which they fell on. The fleshling could not bend her back well. She drank out of Venser’s helmet. As she was drinking Venser could not help but imagine what water out of his filthy helmet would taste like. He would never find out, that much he could guarantee.
By what might have been day four-or perhaps only ten hours-the glow had become noticeably brighter. They could easily see the expressions on one another’s faces. Koth’s face was smiling. There was the particular stench of sulfur in the air.
“I know raw metal when I smell it,” Koth said.
He was correct. They kept walking and found a river of rosy material flowing along a wall of pipes, which were sweating in the sweltering heat. The flow of molten material ran along the side of the wall for a time before making an abrupt turn left and passing through a hole.
“Do we follow the river?” Elspeth whispered to Venser.
“What did you say?” Koth said.
“I only inquired if he thinks we should follow the lava.”
“That is not lava,” Koth said. “That’s ore.”
“Why is it here?” Venser said.
Koth shrugged and looked back at the river, smiling. After watching it move for a time the vulshok turned back.
“I will lead us from here,” he said, casually. “I will bring us up to the surface.”
“What is the furnace layer?” Venser said.
“Must be the area under the Red Lacunae, under Kuldotha.”
“Can you take us there?” Venser said.
“Maybe. If I choose.”
“Well, choose to take us there,” Venser said. “Lead the way. That Tezzeret said the Phyrexians in the furnace layer are different than the others.”
Koth grunted and looked away, the smile still large on his face.
They walked on with Koth strutting at the lead. For a time they followed as close to the river as the heat would allow. But when it disappeared they walked along the wall. Koth looked closely at the wall as they walked. Every so often he would stop and touch the wall. Venser, on the other hand, kept his eyes on the floor. In the light from the molten ore he could clearly see a part of the wall coming up with many scuffs, some of them deep, leading to a section of the wall.
When they reached that part of the wall, Koth continued walking. Venser stopped. He carefully shrugged out from under the fleshling’s arm. He went to the part of the wall that the scuffs seemed to move to. The pipes were mostly rigid there. But after some feeling around and moving some of the more pliable conduit aside, he must have touched a trigger because a doorway opened. Koth walked back.
“Excellent,” he said. But he did not look pleased, Venser thought. The smile he had earlier turned into a frown. “I would have found that eventually.”
They gazed into the doorway. Inside was a largish, brightly lit room with no apparent ceiling. On the other side of the room were a set of metal stairs against the wall. They extended up and up until they were lost to the light in the room.
But the room was not empty. Two large Phyrexians were standing against the wall. The dark iron of their long claws was corroded, as were the plates on their backs and shoulders. But their helmets were off and thrown to the side. Their tiny white heads, which looked like stitched-together bone, bobbed as they made guttural sounds to each other. Other pieces of their metal coverings were cast aside in the swelter of the room. Venser could see their chests and necks, where tattered metal met chafed flesh.
They watched a writhing lump of something on the floor. It seemed a partially phyrexianized elf. It still had the ears of an elf, but plates of bloody, patinated copper pushed out of its skin and wove in with a darker metal to make a musclelike sheathing. The transformation was far from complete, and the elf convulsed on the floor, staring with eyes as black as oil at the dark ceiling.
But the Phyrexians seemed utterly absorbed in the process. As Venser watched, one of them lumbered up and pulled one of its claws across the elf’s bare neck. The blood that flowed out was mostly black. By the time the Phyrexian had moved back to its original spot, more of the copper and dark metal sheathing had wound itself up the elf’s arm and to the slice, covering it.
Venser felt a shiver of disgust move up his spine at the sight of the elf’s flesh turning to metal. But anger replaced that feeling. The fleshling shifted her weight to his shoulder as Elspeth detached herself. She stepped into the room and drew her sword quietly from its sheath. The Phyrexians did not notice her at first, and by the time they did Elspeth had gained the middle ground and was upon them. Venser had seen her many times use her sword
