Tezzeret made a fist with his metal hand, and watched the ripple that action caused in the metal of his arm. An isolated piece broke off and floated above the shoulder. "We will go deeper," Tezzeret said. "Much deeper."

"We can go deeper?" Koth said.

"Oh yes. You are still in the caverns here. We will go into into the Phyrexians." the Phyrexians."

An involuntary shudder pa.s.sed through Elspeth. She frowned.

"And if we refuse to go with you?" Venser said.

"Then I will simply leave you," Tezzeret said. "Your metal guide may or may not be following you still. Have you forgotten about the silver creature? Who do you think sent it?"

Venser stared at Tezzeret.

"And you will neither find your way out nor what you seek, whatever that is," Venser said, "without my help. And there are more clunkers in this cavern, and the light gets brighter. I can shut it off."

"Can you?" Koth said.

"Yes."

"Do that and I'll follow you to the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of Nyrad," Koth said.

Tezzeret closed his eyes. A moment later the light simply shut off. He smiled, showing an array of brown, chipped teeth that were as dull as his arm was luminous. If I had an arm such as that I would want a pair of teeth to match, Venser thought. But the blinding light was off, and Venser could not help but smile himself.

"A simple request," Tezzeret said. "Do I have your trust now?"

"Absolutely not," Venser said.

But Koth was so happy he jumped in the air. Venser watched him. "But apparently we are traveling with you," Venser said.

"You will not regret it. What I have to show you is nothing short of miraculous."

"I have a question," Elspeth said. "What was the purpose of this light?"

Venser turned to Tezzeret. He wanted to know the answer to that as well. The metal-armed human smiled again and looked all around him at the wreckage of the Phyrexians.

"Phyrexians are about experimentation," he said. "If you like this then you will love the lower levels." And with that he began walking. The chrome Phyrexians followed, grunting as they pa.s.sed the companions.

As they walked, the heavy darkness of that deep place settled in around them. From the echoes of their footfalls Venser began to suspect there was a wall ahead of them. And after some time the chrome Phyrexians began to glow slightly. Koth's body glowed as well. The far wall became apparent.

Venser could have teleported there in a second, but he wanted to save his strength. Plus, Tezzeret had not seen him use his special ability. It was a secret. It might prove useful sometime soon to have that secret.

As they walked, Venser heard water dripping somewhere far off. The echoed whine of corroded metal against metal set his teeth on edge. Aside from that, they heard only the clank of the Phyrexians ahead of them.

Some time later the metal floor bulged and they were moving up a low embankment.

Venser's head had been pounding since the bright light. The twitch was upon him, and starting to pull his chin to the right. He already had to squeeze both of his hands together to keep them from shaking. Why not, he thought. He reached into the special inner pocket against his chest and drew out the flat bottle. The tiny cork popped out easily. Venser brought the bottle to his chapped lips and drank a sip of the tingly, spicy fluid that he knew would someday bear him away. It burned his nose before he swallowed, but he liked the burn. Not much left, he noticed. No matter. This was it, the last bottle. If he had a bottle for each time he'd said that.

He slipped the bottle back into his pocket, feeling the mana course through the recesses of his brain, looping and jetting the tight curves.

"What is it?" A voice said.

Tezzeret must have been walking next to him for some time. Venser wondered if perhaps this one could teleport. Have to keep an eye on that. But the fluid he had just drunk made him too sharp to fl.u.s.ter, and he looked casually over at Tezzeret.

"Nothing. A trifle."

"A trifle?" Tezzeret said. "I see."

The two walked side by side for a time, Venser's head racing.

"See, to me that smells like extract of anneuropsis."

Venser said nothing.

"I've been known to keep a bottle handy. It kills weaker metal dancers you know. Strictly people who needed killing. People of no real consequence."

Venser looked at the human walking next to him. With the anneuropsis in his brain and the other's glowing shoulder, Tezzeret appeared a dark visage indeed.

"Where did you steal so much etherium?" Venser said.

"I did not steal, artificer," Tezzeret said with more vehemence than Venser had expected. A sore point, Venser thought. Keep that for later.

Tezzeret flexed his arm, the light from it reflecting in his eyes. "This was hard won. This is my will to power, an escape from weakness and filth."

"So, what would a powerful being like you be doing here with the scourge?" Venser said.

Tezzeret straightened a bit. "I have masters like any man. I have jobs to do."

Venser nodded. That was the truest thing the human had said that day.

"What are you here to accomplish?"

"I will not tell you that, of course."

Venser said nothing.

"You are all very tired," Tezzeret said. "We will stop to sleep as soon as we gain entry into the inter-ways. They will take us over and down deep under the furnace layer, where the contagion is having less luck incorporating the mindset of its denizens."

After more walking they arrived at a wall of metal. It was absolutely smooth and extended up into darkness. The chrome Phyrexians stood dripping fluids as Tezzeret stepped forward and made a sweeping motion with his arm. An opening appeared in the wall. The metal Tezzeret had removed hung against the wall, quivering in the glowing blue light from the chrome Phyrexians. They went first, jerking and convulsing through the hole and into the darkness on the other side.

Later, after a series of other doors leading into pa.s.sages that smelled more or less like rotted meat, Tezzeret raised his hand, halting the group. They were in a room small enough that Venser could actually see the far and the near wall at the same time. It had the advantage of being low, with a ceiling that extended only a few feet above his helmet. Some of the Phyrexians had to crouch. One with the long legs of a spider was dragged by its comrades.

Tezzeret turned to the party. "This is the place for sleep."

Venser fell onto the metal floor and was asleep in moments. He dreamed of night watches. He dreamed that it was his watch. Suddenly Phyrexians made of flesh appeared all around him with blood dripping from their eyes. One seized him around the neck.

He woke to Elspeth shaking him.

"What is it?"

"Our guide is gone," she said.

Venser sat up. "Where?" He looked around in the pale glow from Koth, who sat leaning against the far wall, watching him with an unreadable expression. Venser stood. "Did anyone see him leave?"

n.o.body said anything.

"We're really in it now," Koth said. "You've got us down here and now even I don't have a clue where we are."

Like he ever knew where we were, Venser thought. But he did not speak.

The tone in the vulshok's voice became more caustic. "None of this would have happened if I had been leading," Koth said.

"No," Venser said. "We would be squatting in some hole on the surface watching people die as they fought the invasion."

"It's an honest way to die," Koth said.

"I don't know if there is such a thing."

Koth was silent a moment. "Well, I don't trust this one leading us, do you, Elspeth?" Koth turned to Elspeth, who was standing a bit back, gazing into her sword's shiny surface. At the mention of her name she sheathed her sword.

"I do not..." she said, "trust friends of mine enemy."

Venser heard the creak of metal and raised his hand to stop their speaking. Moments later there was another creak and a grind and the blue Phyrexians appeared in a line in the darkness. Some of the Phyrexians glanced at one another and then back at Venser. Tezzeret was behind them.

"We have done a bit of scouting," Tezzeret said.

"Or trap planning," Koth muttered under his breath.

If Tezzeret heard Koth, he did not acknowledge it. He simply turned and began walking. The blue Phyrexians split and actually bowed as the companions pa.s.sed between them. Koth and Elspeth looked at each other in confusion.

They walked through another hidden door, and through one that was already opened. As they moved, Venser became suddenly sure that they were moving downward, though never did they descend stair or tunnel. Then they came to a strange wall where Tezzeret stopped and waited for the group to catch up. Venser stood staring at the wall, if one could call it a wall. He realized it was more of a body.

Fibers were stretched over protrusions and bound off to other bulges, creating a taut sweep that reminded Venser strongly of muscles without the covering of skin. This impression was heightened when he touched it and the wall trembled. Tezzeret turned and glanced at him.

"Did you touch it?"

"I did," Venser said.

"It feels interesting, yes?"

"What is it?"

"A Phyrexian."

Venser nodded. The others were approaching out of the darkness, but he had something to ask. "You mentioned before that the taint was having trouble with the furnace layer, whatever that is."

"That is true," Tezzeret said, brushing an unseen something off his sleeve.

"What did you mean?"

Tezzeret looked at him strangely, with a small smile curling the corner of his mouth. "They are gaining sentience somehow, all of these creatures, you know. It is a limited sentience, but they are beginning to understand that they exist and can die. This seems to have changed some. We...I am unsure if this change is only found in the denizens of that red layer, or if there has somehow been another dissident mindset injected into the group. It is hard to say."

"How are you privy to this kind of information?"

"I am involved with certain aspects of the centrality of this infestation."

"So why are you helping us?" Venser said. "Couldn't you drop yourself into tremendous trouble?"

"That is one possibility."

Venser glanced at the wall. An eye as large as his whole body was opened next to him. The cornea and slit iris were black, and it was staring directly at him. Venser took a step back. "Where is the mouth?" he said after a moment.

"We will be moving through it shortly," Tezzeret said.

Elspeth and Koth followed the chrome Phyrexians. Tezzeret pulled his breastplate down, revealing his bare chest. A gla.s.s vial hung by a thick lanyard around his neck.

"Would you take it?" Tezzeret asked Venser. "I cannot touch it."

"But it is touching your..." Elspeth started.

"My flesh, I know," Tezzeret said, as Venser looped the lanyard over Tezzeret's head. "But my etherium arm."

Venser held the vial up to the glow of the Phyrexians. "What is it?"

Tezzeret took the vial and opened it with his flesh arm. He dabbed his finger on it and touched his forehead with the dab. Then he handed it to Venser, who did the same. Elspeth followed. Koth smelled it and curled his nose.

"This smells like rot," he said.

"It is the essence of Phyrexian," Tezzeret said. "But do not worry. It is not infectious in itself."

Koth dabbed his forehead.

"Well, now we can take the next step," he tapped the muscles of the wall and suddenly a line creased and the muscle spread to reveal innards: long, twisting metal pipes and strange, small organs hanging like wet fruit. Out of the hanging muck on the wall, a mouth yawned wide. The many teeth crowded in the mouth were chipped and filed down, from the pa.s.sing of many bodies, Venser a.s.sumed. He could see that they had been sharp enough once though.

"Why is the mouth under the skin?" Koth said.

Tezzeret stepped back and smiled his small smile. "Well then, who will be first?"

No one moved.

"Only making a joke," Tezzeret said. He stepped forward to the mouth, which was pulled open so wide that what pa.s.sed for lips were stretched and cracked.

Tezzeret looked back over his shoulder. "Whatever you do, keep your arms in."

He stepped into the mouth, which closed around him and swallowed. Then it opened again. Venser looked at Elspeth, who shook her head. Venser stepped forward and after a pause, stepped into the mouth. It closed on him and he felt the muscles tighten around him. In the next second he was thrown forward and began to slide.

Venser slid, keeping his hands as close to his sides as possible. He was sometimes upside down and sometimes feetfirst. But always he moved, and fast. The throat banked and shot farther and farther down. The word stomach stomach occurred to Venser and he remembered dissecting the dead Phyrexians he had managed to lay his hands on in Dominaria. They were precious because most, if not all, were burned after the great invasion. But he had found one and bought it off the black market. It had been preserved in a foul liquid, but that did not matter. He had worked on the specimen for days. When he had reached the stomach, he had been so shocked that he had dropped the charm he'd had to use to move through the half-flesh body and its metallic viscera. occurred to Venser and he remembered dissecting the dead Phyrexians he had managed to lay his hands on in Dominaria. They were precious because most, if not all, were burned after the great invasion. But he had found one and bought it off the black market. It had been preserved in a foul liquid, but that did not matter. He had worked on the specimen for days. When he had reached the stomach, he had been so shocked that he had dropped the charm he'd had to use to move through the half-flesh body and its metallic viscera.

The stomach itself had teeth. Somehow it too had teeth as if it might someday get out of its body prison and go hunting for itself.