Scars of Mirrodin: The Quest for Karn

by Robert Wintermute

  There were piles of dead Phyrexians laid out over the shadowy circle of blue light. Few Phyrexians remained, and those left were being dealt with by Elspeth, who had begun slashing through them one at a time. For one mad second, Venser thought they might actually prevail.

  Then more Phyrexians howled into sight. Many more of them, huge levelers, nattering micronaughts, and stinking long-legged beasts with hammered-together armor and black holes for eyes. A force three times again as large as the one they had decimated.

  Venser blinked back to Elspeth’s side. The white warrior glanced at him. Her face was sheathed in sweat as she went back to hoisting her sword and slashing it down. Venser’s arms burned and his legs felt flimsy and useless.

  The new force of Phyrexians fell on them. Venser was forced back. He looked over just in time to see a pack of large Phyrexians encircle Elspeth so that he could only see the tip of her sword doing its grim work. Then, the sword’s tip, too, disappeared from sight.

  This was when he could disappear, Venser knew. This was when he could blink into the darkness and away. He was sure that the guide was out in the darkness waiting. In all likelihood he could find him. But then what? He could not leave, as infected as he was with the Phyrexian oil. He turned back to the Phyrexians.

  What had Elspeth said?

  ‘Heroes shed no tears.’

  The Phyrexians hurled themselves onto him, knocking him over. They were on him, smelling like the sewer and popping their joints as they raked their frenzied claws over him. He could not move under the weight of them.

  “Hold.”

  The voice came loud and clear, and the Phyrexians froze. Venser felt a cold drip on his forehead. A huge Phyrexian was dripping black oil on him from its left eye socket.

  “Pull them up,” the voice said again.

  Venser was yanked to his feet.

  “Good to see you again and all that,” Tezzeret said.

  Venser opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. Elspeth, still struggling, was pulled into the circle.

  “You?” she said.

  Tezzeret yawned. “I know, it’s me again. I’m looking for the flesh being.”

  “Is that why you attacked the rebels?” Venser said.

  Tezzeret ignored him and looked at Elspeth, raising his eyebrows.

  “She is not here,” Elspeth said.

  “I see that,” Tezzeret said. “Where, oh, where did she run off to? A party somewhere?”

  “She left us before you arrived,” Elspeth said.

  Tezzeret looked at Elspeth for a long time. Then he turned to Venser and stared at him. Venser could feel a tickle in the center of his brain, and he knew that Tezzeret was searching for truth. Venser blocked the intrusion, but Tezzeret clearly got enough.

  “That is unfortunate,” Tezzeret said. “We will have to keep looking. You both will be going back to Glissa for skinning.” Tezzeret turned and began walking away. He gestured back at them as he walked. “I don’t know why. You will have to ask her.” The Phyrexians parted and he walked between them.

  Venser and Elspeth were hoisted. With the screech of rusted metal on metal the Phyrexians began to run. They ran their prisoners across the room. When they reached the wall, hours later, the Phyrexians in the front stopped and began looking at the wall, feeling at it with their claws. The lead Phyrexians scraped at the metal, but no opening occurred, neither was there an eyeway in evidence. They waited for Tezzeret to come forward, but he did not.

  When it was clear that Tezzeret was not with them anymore, Venser leaned over to Elspeth.

  “Tezzeret must have guided them,” Venser whispered to Elspeth. “They cannot find the portal without him.”

  And it seemed to be true. The Phyrexians stood at the wall for many hours. First it was one and then all of them poked, scraped, and struck the metal wall. No portal opened.

  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.

  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 empty bottle. He could already feel his arms and legs quake at the thought of the empty bottle. He’d tried living without sips once before, and that hadn’t worked out too well, had it?

  The clatter behind became the booming of many scrambling feet as the Phyrexians charged along the passage and then into the large room, which they found empty.

  The guide led them along branchways, where the passages were growing sideways in long tubes. As they ran, they passed places where new passages shot through one another and they crumbled, leaving large rooms. Lamina, as the fleshling called it, hung randomly.

  There were so many small passageways and crumbled walls with holes in them that the Phyrexians had trouble following their trail, though not for lack of trying. As they ran, Venser could hear the enemy crashing through walls and retching out their screams.

  Venser stopped.

  “Keep running,” Elspeth said.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Let me rest for a moment.” His legs were so wobbly that he felt he would trip with each step. Tripping would not be advised just then. The growing metal of the passage they were running in was jagged and strangely colored.

  “Why is it different colors?” Venser panted.

  But the guide was watching behind them. He did not hear Venser.

  “Now we go,” the guide said.

  They kept running. Sometimes the Phyrexians sounded far away. Sometimes they sounded as if they were in the same passage. They kept running. Eventually the walls took on different lines of color. Some of the rings were yellow and others were green. They looked like minerals and base metals. At one point Venser stopped running and touched a wetted finger to one of the rough lines. He put the finger in his mouth, then spat.

  “Valatitium,” Venser said. “This is found on other planes.”

  Koth stopped and looked at the line of yellow. “These are deposits,” he said. “If the vulshok could delve this deep we could haul quite a lot of good minerals and metal.”

  “Keep running,” the guide yelled.

  But soon Venser could not run anymore. He stopped again. The Phyrexians had dropped back, farther than they had been. Still, their banging movements were clearly audible.

  “We cannot stop,” The guide said. “There are branches ahead that may afford us a way to lose our pursuers.”

  “I cannot run anymore,” Venser said. His legs were so tired that he sat hard on the floor. He had run so hard that his lungs burned and a metallic taste was at the back of his throat. “I cannot.”

  “You must,” the guide said.

  But Venser’s eyes were on the color bands in the wall. There was a new color he had not seen before. He inched closer to the wall and put a finger to it. A bit of the color crumbled easily at his touch. Venser turned to Koth.

  “Do you know this mineral?” Venser said.

  “We call it ker,” Koth said.

  “I know it as kaachmine,” Venser said, his mind racing. He suddenly snapped his fingers. “We need to collect as much of it as we can.” He took out the knife that lay in his boot and began chipping chunks of ker from the wall. It came off easily.

  “We must go,” the guide said.

  “Stand away,” Venser said.

  As he worked, Koth glowed slightly. Venser noticed it and frowned. “Don’t get hot around this material,” Venser said.

  “Let us run,” Elspeth said.

  “I have no more energy or mana,” Venser said, as he crumbled some of the ker chunks into powder. “If this works, it will require neither of those.”

  By the time he had a good-sized pile, the Phyrexians were quite near, their thrashing made them sound like they were in the next passage.

  Venser led Elspeth, the fleshling, and the guide down the passage. Koth stayed near the pile. When the rest of them were a good distance down the passage, Venser pushed each one of them into a depression in the wall, and then waved to Koth.

  The vulshok tore a strip off his cloth shirt. He wound the strand of cloth up tight and placed one piece in the pile of ker, which reached to the height of his knee. He trailed the other end of the cloth away from the pile.

  Then the Phyrexians appeared at the end of the passage. When Koth saw them he casually leaned over the end of the cloth. He made a motion, and sparks flew off the flint and steel in his hand. Soon he’d lit the end of the cloth, which flamed strangely well. As it burned, Koth backed up carefully, watching to see if it would go out. When it was obvious that the flame had caught and caught well on the fabric, Koth turned and sprinted faster than anyone had ever seen him run. The Phyrexians, seeing him running, bounded ahead.

  “Down,” Venser yelled.

  There was a huge pop and a whoosh of air, and in the next moment Venser found himself facedown on the metal floor, far from where he had been standing. He shook his head as he sat up. A high ringing filled his skull. Nearby Elspeth was already on her feet and looking down at him. Her mouth was moving, but Venser could not hear any of her words.

  Where the mound of ker had been, there was only the tangled mass of many parts of many more
Phyrexians. Venser doubted if he could climb over the pile, it was so high. Some of the enemy had been torn asunder while others had their metal parts melted to the floor. All was still.

  Elspeth put out her hand and helped Venser to his feet. The guide was mysteriously on his feet and unscathed. Elspeth had black powder burns on her arm and face. Venser could only imagine how he looked. If how he felt was any indication, then it was bad indeed. His head still hurt from the attack that had dented his helmet, as the ringing in his ears began to subside, he felt like lying down and sleeping for sixty rotations of a Dominaria sun.

  But it wasn’t to be. From beyond the heap of destroyed Phyrexians came a series of grunting gags that sounded very much alive.

  Venser turned to Elspeth. He was the very essence of depleted. He had nothing left. Well, he had the knife he kept in his boot with which to fight off all attackers. So, really, he had nothing. Even Elspeth, who was always willing to slay Phyrexians, looked around helplessly.

  “Did you hear that?” Venser could once again hear himself speak, though the echoing in his skull sounded strange. He could more feel his words’ echo than properly hear them.

  Elspeth was looking around. “Where is Koth?” she said.

  They found him farther down the passage, lying on his side, groaning. A piece of twisted metal, which could have fit on a Phyrexian, had pierced the side of his abdomen.

  Elspeth carefully took hold of the piece of metal and yanked it out. Koth grunted through gritted teeth. The piece was slathered with blood and Elspeth threw it clattering away. Koth relaxed and rolled over on his back. From behind them another Phyrexian call echoed.

  “What will happen now?” Venser asked. “Perhaps the guide can fight off the Phyrexians and heal Koth?”

  Elspeth did not laugh. She looked far too tired to laugh, Venser thought.

  Instead she took a lanyard from around her neck. At the end of the lanyard was a small bottle. “You aren’t the only one with a bottle,” she said.