Elspeth and Venser were still held, but by only one Phyrexian each: a large, white bastion. The bastions were encrusted with what looked like porcelain, chipped to expose the dark metal underneath. Venser’s was large, and held him with two of its four arms. It smelled like dead beetles. The bastions did not move to try their hands at opening the portal.
Then Venser saw something strange indeed-a form standing back in the darkness. It took him a moment of staring to figure out that it was Koth. Behind Koth he could just make out another humanoid outline. The fleshling. Venser leaned over to Elspeth. “Look slowly behind,” he whispered.
Elspeth nodded when she’d seen the vulshok.
The bastions that were holding them were three lengths away from the others, who had moved toward the wall to see if they could find the portal. Venser reached out with his mind into the dark recesses of the bastion that was holding him. As with every time he did that with a Phyrexian, he was shocked by the images he saw, the terror and violence, endless lines of headless, armless, legless torsos hung on hooks like so many hocks, a red-eyed face staring from a mud-daubed hut, stairs in a limitless room running up to an alter, where bodies were burning on a pyre. Strange visions leftover, no doubt, from the original being whose body the Phyrexian had grown from. Once he was connected with the vile mass in the bastion’s skull, he channeled cooling mana. Soon what he had left of his mana filled the beast’s skull with calmness. The calmness became lethargy and moved into stupefaction just before the creature’s knees buckled. Koth was behind to seize the Phyrexian around the waist and ease it soundlessly to the ground. Elspeth had found her Phyrexian’s chest and mouth, and was busy choking it, as it banged on her back.
Once Venser’s Phyrexian was on the floor, Koth rushed to Elspeth and held two of the creature’s arms so it could not strike. Venser held the other two.
Soon it too fell.
They walked away into the darkness with the sound of the Phyrexians banging on the wall echoing behind them. The fleshling was there, and after a time the guide appeared out of the darkness. Koth walked ahead.
“We will not talk about what I did,” Koth said. “Ever.”
Venser glanced back over his shoulder. He could not see the Phyrexians, but he could hear them tapping on the wall.
“We leave it where it lies.” Koth said.
The guide pointed them to the right and they followed. Before long a choking cry of alarm went up, and they began running. They ran as hard as they could. When they reached the wall Venser let out a sigh of relief, knowing he could not have run for much longer.
The guide tapped once on the wall and nothing happened. The wall remained smooth and unlined. The scream increased in volume behind them.
“Try again,” Elspeth said.
The guide tried again, nothing opened. “The portals might have been deactivated somehow.”
Venser glanced back. That would explain the Phyrexian’s inability to open the portal. He would have liked to have cast his wisps, but he had exactly no mana left after putting the Phyrexian to sleep. Nothing.
“Can I tear it open?” Koth said.
“It does not work that way with these portals,” the guide said.
“And the Phyrexians would know which way we went,” Elspeth said.
“I think they already know which way we went,” Venser said.
He turned back to the wall.
“How do these work?” Venser said.
“Don’t think now is the time to tinker, artificer,” Koth growled.
“How do they?” Venser repeated.
The cries of the Phyrexians were close.
“Are they mechanical?” Venser said.
“Yes,” the guide said.
Venser knew what he had to do. He knew what it would mean later, but if there was no later all their effort would have been wasted. He put his hand in his torn shirt and brought out the small bottle, which he uncorked, and emptied the remaining fluid into his mouth.
Venser felt the mana rush into his pores and surge up his brain stem. He shook some of the mana into his fingertips.
“Where should it be?” he asked.
The guide pointed.
Carefully he inserted his hands into the metal of the wall, which gave way like dough. He felt around for a couple of seconds.
“There is a mechanism here,” he said. “I cannot tell how it works yet, but it does not want to open.”
Koth flinched at the closeness of the Phyrexian’s cries behind. “We knew that already,” Koth said.
“They are mechanisms at this level,” the guide said, “very old ones from before the Phyrexians. They open outward.”
“Karn made this then,” Venser said, and as he spoke, the portal’s door swung out to reveal deeper darkness than they were currently standing in.
They each stepped carefully inside. Venser closed the door and put his hands back into the wall to lock it. Seemingly moments later they heard the first Phyrexians arrive and begin hammering on the wall.
“These walls are thick,” the guide said.
“Who locked the portals?” Koth said.
Nobody said anything.
“Tezzeret, maybe,” Venser said. “But I do not know why, exactly.”
“Let us be off, lest they find a way through,” Elspeth said.
Chapter 18
They walked in the near darkness until Venser felt the long fingers of exhaustion pushing into his joints. When the guide was sure they were far enough away from the portal, they stopped.
Koth took a deep breath and held it. Soon he began to glow, giving off both light and heat. The room they found themselves in was different than many they had seen in recent days. It had a more organic feel. The walls showed growth lines, as if the large metal walls and ceiling had grown like trees. The ceiling was sloped and no line was straight anywhere.
The organicity made Venser relax somehow. “Why is this room different?” Venser asked, his head still spinning with tiredness.
“This is one of the many passages and rooms that have been growing,” the guide said, “creating themselves since the Phyrexians. None of the guides know why.”
Venser stopped to look at the walls. “What is the green material?” he said, pinching the dark green strands hanging from the walls. “It’s not metal.”
The guide shrugged, but the fleshling approached the wall for a closer look.
“This is lamina,” she said. “A growing material we revere in the Tangle. It is an effect of the True Sun,” she said to the bewildered faces around her.
“Why is it down here?” Koth said.
“It is commonly found in these depths,” the guide said.
A tremendous crash thundered through the room, followed by the creaking sound of bending metal.
“They have broken through,” Koth said.
They began running. Venser was the last to stand. His legs had felt like boiled eggs before the Phyrexians had broken into that cavern, and he would have to run more. To top it off, his mind had started to drift to the empty bottle in his shirt. The
