Venser squinted at the bowl. Darksteel, yes. He knew of it from his studies in metallurgy. A virtually indestructible metal found only on Mirrodin. Extremely difficult to work and very rare and expensive to buy. The bowl had something in it. From where he was crouched, Venser could not see what it was. The smaller bowls contained other, bloody things.
The sound of movement from behind made them freeze. Out of the corner of his eye Venser watched as a small form moved around a mound of meat. It walked with its head cast downward, but its jagged profile was unmistakable. The rows of crooked teeth filling a thin jaw completed the picture. It had eyes-glittering black things, four of them, but they were very small and appeared to not be of much use, as it passed within an arm’s reach before moving toward the table. Once at the table the small Phyrexian placed what was in its hand in the first bowl. It was muttering something as it did so, in a tongue that made Elspeth’s lip curl.
The first bowl turned a deeper purple and the creature scooped the fist-sized object into the next bowl, muttering again. The next bowl became suddenly bright silver. The little creature picked up the heart. Carefully the Phyrexian raised its right hand and out of its first finger a long, thin blade slid. The cut that the small creature made was thin and deep. The blood came from the heart and the Phyrexian held it over the third bowl. When the blood hit the bowl it sizzled and popped. The blade disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and the creature took the heart in both its hands. It hinged the two sides open and closed at the cut line, like a mouth in a bloody little pantomime. That went on until the Phyrexian, apparently satisfied, dropped the heart unceremoniously in the second to last bowl.
Koth glanced at Elspeth, and then back to the strange creature. Venser watched as the Phyrexian opened another one of its fingers and sprayed a fluid into the second to last bowl. It let the cut heart sit in the fluid for a long time. Long enough that Venser found his eyelids falling. Then, with sudden and blinding speed it seized the heart and, as though the thing were struggling, it stuffed it into the darksteel bowl.
A moment later the Phyrexian turned and walked back out to the meat piles to find another heart. When the Phyrexian was gone the artificer crept from behind his heap of meat and to the round door. It did not open. He pushed on the door’s soft sides and waved his hand before it, but still it did not open. The darksteel bowl was behind him. Venser tried not to gaze in, but he saw what was inside it anyway-many other hearts all sliced.
When he turned back to the door, the small Phyrexian was there. It stood very still, with its long, black face cocked at an angle like a bird eyeing something shiny. Venser also stood absolutely still. He tried to breathe mana into himself, but found, to his horror, that he did not have what he needed for a jump. The jump he had made with the fleshling had all but drained him to the last. To make matters worse, his heart was beating fast in his chest. Then it was beating faster still. The small Phyrexian jerked its head completely sideways so the hole in the side of its head that served as an ear was aimed at Venser’s chest. It was with a certain concern that Venser noticed that the creature’s hand was tapping out the beat of his speeding heart on its emaciated metal thigh. The artificer’s heart was practically hammering on his chest.
Venser turned to run, and the Phyrexian raised its hand. The artificer stopped in his tracks. He closed his eyes and felt the grip of the creature’s mana on his heart, which raced and skipped along in his chest. He had one chance. He reached out with the mana he had left, and formed a link with the beast. For one horrid moment he saw into the thing’s mind-a murky place of blood and constant screaming and hunger and no light. Venser turned that part of his brain down. Then he began to drop the mental walls he kept constantly around his mind to protect from telepathic attack. If he did it correctly, the link he had with the creature’s mind would allow the mana directed against him to move through and back to the sender, as if in a circuit. Sometimes it even worked. Once, when attacked by a mind-mage trying to steal one of his creations, Venser had tried to form the link and pass the thief’s attack back to him, only to suffer a minor stroke when the attacker blocked his own mind.
So, if the sender threw up its own wall fast enough, then the full charge turned around and came thundering back.
Venser dropped his last mind barricade, and a moment later the Phyrexian stood upright and began jerking wildly. Venser made his hold tighter and tighter, until the thing sunk to its knobby knees in the stench and began to shriek.
The sound was so loud Venser almost lost his concentration. It echoed off the walls and down the cavernous room. Venser tightened his mind, and then tightened it again. A moment later the Phyrexian had black fluid running from its eyes and the holes of its ears pitched forward and did not rise again.
But the scream had not gone unanswered. From the far side of the room Venser heard a cry and the tromping of many feet running. He was almost too fatigued to move, but move he did. Koth and Elspeth were already at the door by the time he arrived. Koth punched the lidded doorway, to no effect.
“Stand away,” Elspeth said. She drew her sword and thrust it deep into the rubbery flesh and drew downward, pulling a neat cut from top to bottom. Fluid spurted out and the cut yawned wide.
“You first,” Elspeth said, stepping back for Koth.
The vulshok gazed uncertainly into the gash. Then he stepped through and his leg disappeared suddenly. The choking call was echoed behind them and Venser jumped through the gash. He felt himself carried along a tube in the dark, winding and turning and then tumbling downward, and suddenly stopping.
“Do these foes travel in this manner all the time,” Elspeth said, picking herself off the ground. Cut hearts were strewn everywhere at the base of the eye, which irised closed behind them. Venser’s foot slipped on one of the organs as he tried to stand.
Koth was already away from the hole. The room was as large as the last, and just as dark, but Koth was glowing all over his body. He turned. “Look at this,” he said.
Venser walked over to where the vulshok was squatting. The glow emanating from the front of his body cut a rosy swath through the darkness. In the light, large chunks of rock cast severe shadows.
“Are those rocks?” Venser said.
Koth nodded. “These are rocks. I was a Planeswalker before I saw my first rock. “They are not known on Mirrodin.”
“How are they here, in this deep place?” Elspeth said.
Koth shook his head.
Venser approached one of the rocks. It was really more of a boulder. It stood taller than Venser, and if he was to trust the jagged edges, then it was blasted or torn out of a mountain in some way.
“This is stanite,” Venser said.
“What does that mean?” Koth said.
“It is a common rock, found on many planes.”
“Very strong,” Elspeth said.
“I can’t think what the enemy needs this for.”
Venser looked closely at the rock. “How long have you been away from Mirrodin?”
“About a season,” Koth said.
“And the Phyrexians were here when you left?”
“Well, they weren’t on the surface, I’ll tell you that,” Koth said, pushing his knuckles into the palm of his hand.
Venser looked back to the rock. “That is interesting.”
“Why?” Elspeth said.
“Only that these rocks have been here for years,” Venser said.
“How do you know?”
Venser put out his finger and pulled it across the top of one of the boulders. His finger left a deep trail on it. “Dust,” Venser said.
“I do not think the Phyrexians pulled these here,” Elspeth said.
But Koth was not paying attention to the boulders anymore. His eyes were back on the portal, which remained open. “Why have they not come after us?” he said.
Venser turned. “It could be that there are many splits in the tubing, and they don’t know which one we took.”
“Why did we take this one?”
“I have no idea,” Venser admitted. “I had hoped you would be able to tell us.”
“These openings and tubes are not Mirrodin technology.”
