them where Karn can be found, and to tell him about the fleshling, but something in the way Ezuri was staring at him made Venser close his mouth.
Ezuri’s eyes moved over the rest of the companions, until it stopped on the fleshling leaning on Elspeth’s shoulder.
“You are new. Who are you?”
The fleshling said nothing
“Speak up,” Ezuri said.
“Melira,” the fleshling said softly.
Melira? Venser thought.
“The disgusting flesh of an outlander?” Ezuri said. “Yet you have the mark of a Greenshank sylvok to my eyes.”
Venser said nothing. Nothing at all.
Ezuri’s eye did not leave the fleshling.
“Are you still prevailing against the forces of Phyrexia?” Elspeth said.
That made Ezuri’s eye move off the fleshling and rest on Elspeth. “Why, hello, white lady.”
“So, you have vanquished the Phyrexians from the surface?” Elspeth said, repeating her original question, which she could tell was a sore spot for the elf.
“We are making headway,” Ezuri said casually.
Venser stepped forward before any more words could be spoken on the subject. “Ezuri,” he said. “Could we stay here for a time, until we have rested?”
Ezuri glanced at Koth before curling his lip. The vulshok pretended not to notice. “All enemies of Phyrexia are welcome here,” Ezuri said. “But I warn you that you may be asked to help our efforts.”
“Thank you, Ezuri,” Venser said.
The elf nodded. “Leaving will be your trick. But you are welcome to stay.”
“Leaving will be our trick,” Elspeth said.
Ezuri’s eye drifted back to the fleshling before he turned and climbed back into his shelter.
The loxodon led them to another part of the settlement. He stopped at a small shelter-nothing more than a Phyrexian crusher’s back panel leaned against the metal wall.
“This was a friend’s place,” the loxodon said. “Gone to shadow now. He had to be put away.”
Elspeth wasted no time leading the fleshling into the shelter, and helping her lie down on her stomach.
“Water is found over there,” the loxodon said, gesturing to an indentation in the metal where water dripped. “The latrines are over there.”
Venser walked over to the water pool and took a long drink. He filled up his canteen, aware that all of the eyes of the small settlement were on him. Three children appeared at the water pool. They watched Venser from a safe distance, but eventually came closer. He smiled at them and they trailed him as he walked back to the shelter. He noticed that some of the children had dark stains blotching their metal parts. Some even had the stain on their skin parts. One girl who walked with the other children behind Venser, giggling as she copied his walk with long loping steps, had more than a dark stain on her arm. Her stain had worn away skin, and appeared to be spreading up her arm.
The children followed him all the way back to the camp. Koth stood to shoo them away, but Venser frowned. “Leave them be,” he said.
Koth glared at the children before sitting down next to Venser. The little girl stuck her tongue out at Koth, and then the children began to run after one another.
“You see the dark patches,” Venser said.
“Phyresis,” Koth said.
“Many show the sign,” Venser said.
“Yes,” Koth said. “It’ll take them all.”
Venser suddenly understood the loxodon’s cryptic words from earlier when he described the occupants of their current shelter as “gone to shadow.”
From inside, Venser heard Elspeth chanting. He stood and went into the shelter, which was open on two sides. He placed his full canteen next to Elspeth and then returned to sit next to Koth.
The children, having seen where Venser went, skirted around and poked their heads into the other entrance of the shelter. They stood and watched Elspeth chant. After a time, all the children ran away but the girl with the large blotch on her arm. She inched closer and closer until she was sitting at the head of the fleshling.
Venser could not see what was happening in the shelter, but he heard Elspeth stop chanting. There was talking in the shelter.
“Why are you shunned here by these people,” Venser said.
Koth said nothing at first. “For caring about Mirrodin,” he said. “I disappeared, and my own tribe spoke against me. Their words echoed. Now my name draws harsh words.”
“And you think you can gain their trust back by leading them against the Phyrexians?”
Koth nodded. “I know I can.”
Venser heard the little girl’s voice rise, as though she were telling a story.
“If I can show them that I am still a vulshok,” Koth continued. “A Mirran that did not leave his mother and family to the nim and Phyrexians.”
Venser forced away the images of Koth’s mother in her hut. The terrible way her body jerked, controlled like a puppet by a Phyrexian. “There are other ways, you know,” Venser said. “To show that you are not a coward.”
The vulshok’s eyes flashed at the word coward. “What would an artificer know about it?” Koth said, suddenly defensive.
“Nothing,” Venser said.
They sat staring at each other. Suddenly the little girl in the shelter screamed.
Chapter 12
Venser was up and to the entrance of the shelter in an instant. He met the girl as she virtually exploded out of the right side of the lean-to. One of the largest smiles Venser had ever seen was spread across her face. She stopped and held up her arms. The dark blotches were gone. The place where the phyresis had corrupted her flesh was nothing more than a pink patch.
Venser shook his head.
From behind, Venser felt Koth shove him out of the way. “What is all this now?”
When the vulshok saw the girl’s arms, he drew back as though she were infected worse than before. “What madness is this?”
Venser went into the small shelter. Even in the low light, he could see Elspeth staring down at the fleshling, who was lying on her stomach, with her cheek resting on her forearm. Elspeth looked up at him as he entered. The expression on the white warrior’s face was impossible for Venser to read: a combination of absolute wonder and shock.
“What just happened?” Venser said.
“I’m still not completely sure,” Elspeth whispered, her eyes still on the fleshling. Venser looked too. She was lying with her head turned. Her blue eyes were wet, and she regarded them calmly from the ground.
“She began to glow,” Elspeth said.
“Glow?”
“The girl was telling us about her parents dying, and the flesh Mirran began to glow from her eyes.”
“The fleshling?” Venser said. He felt strange calling the woman ‘the fleshling’ but he would have felt stranger calling her Melira, for some reason.
“This human woman,” Elspeth said, gesturing to the fleshling, “began to glow from the eyes. Her eyes filled the room with light. It was bright for a time and then the girl screamed.”
“And the little girl was healed?”
