They took a step forward in unison. Large barbed metal wings snapped out from their backs and spread wide. A moment later the Phyrexians took flight. They ascended high into the air. The chamber seemed to have no ceiling, and for a terrible moment, Elspeth lost sight of them.
It was Koth who found them in the dark air. “To the right, coming low,” he bellowed.
They looked right and there were the ten skimming the floor with their sharp fingers spread wide, ready to rake the party from their boots.
Venser breathed deeply and in his cranium he imagined the mana moving the turns and curls of his brain, lighting the regions until it glowed from within. Then he imagined a blue smoke coming from his nose as he repeated the rounded syllables of the incantation. His eyes pulsed blue. Their bodies doubled, and then doubled again, six of them stood in a rough line against the flying Phyrexians. Then their bodies copied again, and again.
Four Elspeths drew swords and fell into a wide stance. Four Koths began to grunt and growl the spells of incineration and blaze. Koth raised his hands and four huge balls of fire blasted from his fingertips at the Phyrexians. They dodged the balls, but Venser watched as the fire shot across the room and did not stop. The balls streaked for as long as Venser was watching. The enemy was almost upon them before he took his eyes off the fireballs.
Elspeth stepped into the Phyrexians and brought her sword’s blade down in an overhead attack. As she did so, the steel flashed and blurred into a mass of flashing blades. But something was different. Instead of the sound of thousands of swishing swords Venser was used to hearing, he heard thousands of clanging sounds. Thousands of glancing blows. One of the Phyrexians did find its torso split, and with the same rapt expression on its plain face, it fell in two pieces.
Four Koths seized Phyrexian wrists and spun to the left, but only one actually cast its foe into the gallow-like structure made of meat, where it hit hard so that the pieces of metal at the top vibrated like a tuning fork and the creature did not move again.
Venser pulled more power from the folds of his cranium. He dodged to the left to avoid the pocked claws of a Phyrexian that had guessed which Venser was real. As he passed he touched the creature’s leg. A blue charge traveled up the leg and into the barbed flesh. The charge circled and shot along all straight angles. Finally it found the creature’s skull. The Phyrexian’s eyes flashed blue and a moment later it went limp and fell in a heap of wrong angles.
The Phyrexians stopped and with their wings flapping furiously, they hovered and began raking with their claws. Koth’s eyes went red and cuffs of metal popped out along his forearms. A Phyrexian claw glanced off his arms and he shoved his hands into the thing’s barbed abdomen. His hands sunk into the metal and the geomancer pulled great hunks out. Oil fell out and the Phyrexian clawed at Koth, but the vulshok continued to yank bits out until he tore the creature out of the air and threw it down. The Phyrexian tried to rise but Koth fell on its chest with his knees and began banging its head savagely on the metal floor.
Another hovered above Koth, sweeping gashes in his back and hair. Koth turned and knocked the Phyrexian out of the air with a blazing fist.
Elspeth was beside herself. Venser had never seen such rage. She was screaming as she hacked at the nearest Phyrexian, leveling gashes out of its porcelain shell. The Phyrexian caught her sword, twisted, and wrenched it from Elspeth’s grasp. It cast the sword aside and came at the white warrior’s chest with its claws forward. Instead of falling back Elspeth lunged forward, catching the Phyrexian’s claws in her hands. They grappled a few feet off the ground until Koth seized the Phyrexian’s foot and dragged it down and began twisting its head on its neck. The head turned freely and seemed to have little effect on the Phyrexian, who continued to try to scrabble a path through Elspeth’s hands to the white warrior’s chest.
Koth began pulling up on the head. He heaved and twisted and eventually the head popped neatly off. The Phyrexian’s body went limp and fell to the ground. Koth held the head up and looked at it. He tapped the porcelain shell with the back of his knuckle. “It’s like egg shell,” he said.
Two of the other Phyrexians grabbed Koth’s arms and swept him high into the air. The geomancer laughed as he flew high. Elspeth, in one smooth movement, reached down for the knife in her boot, raised up, and threw. The bright blade glittered in the air before finding its target: the right eye of the Phyrexian holding Koth’s left arm.
Both the creatures stopped flying upward. The one with the knife sticking out of its eye turned and looked at its compatriot. They both cocked their heads as their wings flapped.
“You have something in your eye,” Koth said.
The Phyrexian turned its strange gaze on the geomancer. Its wing beats slowed before stopping altogether, causing it to plummet.
As the beast fell it did not release its hold on Koth’s arm … neither would the other Phyrexian, who strained against the combined weight, and then fell as well. Koth managed to turn as he fell so that the Phyrexians were between him and the metal floor. They hit first. By the time Koth hit, the Phyrexians were dead and offered enough resistance to break his fall. He bounced high off their bodies and came to rest near Venser, who helped him up.
Elspeth, meanwhile, had dispatched the two remaining Phyrexians with her blade, which she had retrieved.
Koth shook off Venser’s arm. “That was fun,” he said. “I’d like to try that again. Should we? Should we do that again?”
Venser shook his head. The geomancer was acting stranger and stranger. When was the last time any of them had eaten food or had more than a mouthful of water? They were each in their own way starting to show the strain of the trip. Venser knew that at some point he could, in likelihood, have to fight and restrain the much larger vulshok. Venser smiled. He’d fought larger and more powerful beings in his time. Koth would be easily dealt with.
Elspeth, on the other hand, showed absolutely no signs of stress, except when fighting. That made Venser all the more nervous. She had become bloodthirsty, but that could hardly be blamed. She’d mentioned her imprisonment at the hands of the enemy. A traumatic event like that could not help but leave scars. Yes, Venser would have to watch her for signs of stress. He would have to watch them both, and in the meantime it was up to him to think rationally. The mission could not be compromised. They must find Karn, and by any means at his disposal, Venser would make that happen … even if that meant dealing with every Phyrexian in that rat’s nest under the surface. Even if that meant dealing with Koth and Elspeth. He would find Karn, oh yes.
“Mr. Artificer, sir,” Koth waved his hand before Venser’s eyes. “Are you there, sir?”
Venser blinked. “I am here, you dolt.”
“There he is,” Koth said. “I thought for a time that you’d have to be put out of your misery. That you were becoming like
“I am not affected by the black oil,” Venser said defensively.
“Oh, no?” Koth said. “Why not.”
Venser stepped around the vulshok and went to stand next to Elspeth. Her eyes were narrowed and her lip was drawn in the corner into a snarl. She stared down at one of the dead Phyrexians.
In the barred window behind them the sound of thousands of clicking insects continued. The wide fire in the distance flickered and danced, giving off plumes of smoke that rose high in the absolutely vast room.
“Their claws are cold and cruel,” Elspeth said. She was looking down at her hands as she spoke. She clenched one gloved hand. “Once they touch you it is hard to forget that feeling.”
“Are you hurt?” Venser said.
Elspeth turned on him. For one quick moment Venser thought she would stab him with the knife she had just pulled out of the Phyrexian’s eye. But the sneer quivered and disappeared. “I do not allow them to hurt me,” Elspeth said.
The sudden stillness of the room was beginning to unnerve him. The huge space and many others on Mirrodin, he realized suddenly, reminded him of when he was a child running in the streets and he found the set of a theatrical play. He and the other children he was with could never afford to attend such a play, but they found the set. The set builders had just left the premises and the back door was open. He and his friends wandered in and stood in the hush of the room with its small castle with an open side. There was also a tree built of wood planks. It was for appearance of course, and nobody was around. That’s how the rooms felt to Venser there in the bowels of Mirrodin.
The clicking in the barred room started again. “Are they cruel?”
