Venser considered such thoughts as he shot through the intestinal track.

And then he popped out and went sliding along a floor. Tezzeret was standing, scooping slime off his cheeks. Venser tried to stand, but slid. He was covered with slime. He turned and looked at the puckered hole they came out of. As he watched, Elspeth and Koth popped out. He helped Elspeth to her feet. She stood, wet and dripping with oil and metallic viscera. Venser watched as Tezzeret walked to a part of the flesh wall. As before, he touched it and flesh yawned to reveal the wet innards, which in turn spread to reveal a mouth yawning wide. Tezzeret stepped into that other mouth, and the process repeated.

They shot down that throat, and then another. Each time Venser felt sicker and sicker. Every time the mouth seemed to get larger and larger. Once, he forgot to keep his arms at his sides. His wrist caught on something metal, and he yanked to a stop in the tube. He pulled and pulled, with the throat muscles closing in on him and squeezing, and finally his wrist came free. After what seemed like a hundred more throats and rooms, Venser stood and then sat back down on the metal floor.

"You are tired?" Tezzeret said.

"Yes," Venser said.

"That is good, because we have come to what I wanted to show you."

Venser looked around at the room. It appeared to be like all the others.

Tezzeret must have seen the doubt on Venser's face. He walked to the far side of the small room and put both his hands on the wall. Two eyes as large as his head appeared and blinked. Tezzeret spoke a series of words. A seam appeared in the muscle and then in the conduit guts beneath. The seam slid open to reveal a room on the other side.

Elspeth popped out behind as Venser tried to get a good look into the room. He could not see anything save brightness. The room was well lit. Not bright like the room where they had met Tezzeret, but well lit. Koth popped out of the previous opening. Venser turned to Tezzeret. The metal-armed human was drumming the fingers of his metal arm on a wall. Waiting for his Phyrexians before entering the room, Venser guessed. Elspeth appeared beside Venser, still dripping and stinking. Her eyes wrenched down into suspicious slits. Her weapon was unsheathed in her white-knuckled fist.

"What is it?" Venser said.

Elspeth did not speak at first. Venser had to repeat his question.

"The smell," she said. "Do you smell it?"

Venser did not want to tell her how much she stunk, how much they all stunk. "I think we all have a particular stench about us now," he said.

Elspeth's head jerked curtly, her eyes never leaving the doorway into the well-lit room. "Not that smell. The other."

Venser took a good breath. His nose was usually fairly good, but he could not smell anything except the slight stink of rotting meat. He looked at Elspeth and shook his head. Her hands were shaking. Her lips were drawn into a tight, white line.

"I smell their tools," she said. "Their blades."

When the last of his chrome Phyrexians were dripping in the corner, Tezzeret stepped to the bright room. "This way," he said.

Venser suddenly became very aware of the Phyrexians behind him. He stopped walking. They stopped walking. Would it be possible to turn and leave, or would they not let him go?

Tezzeret was the first to enter the room. Venser followed, then Elspeth, and last Koth, cursing as he tried to ladle the slime off his arms.

Inside the room, lights were focused on haphazardly arranged tables. There were cages of metal ribs lining the room. Phyrexians of various sizes were moving between the tables.

They were chrome-type Phyrexians like Tezzeret's. One had a chrome breast and head, and unnaturally high shoulders. Each of its huge claws was festooned with blades and needles, and both of these claws were inside the cracked-open chest of a human lying on a table. The human was jerking and writhing as the surgeon pulled parts out and looked at them. A huge Phyrexian with a tiny skeletal head and patched-together arms as long as its legs held the humans down. As they watched in stunned silence, the blade-handed surgeon took out the human's liver and dropped it unceremoniously on the table with a splat splat. Another Phyrexian, with strips of discolored iron wrapped around its body, poked at the liver with its sharpened finger lances, while its other hand, shaped like scissors, snipped bits off.

Elspeth screamed.

It was a sound like none Venser had ever heard-a primal, rage-filled shriek. She ran forward and cut the first Phyrexian she met, leaving two hewn parts to slip to the floor. Her sword moved like a blur and two more Phyrexians fell. Elspeth's face was a grim mask and her blows were harder and less focused than normal-more wild hacking than anything else. She bellowed in a language Venser couldn't identify as she butchered every Phyrexian in the room.

Some of the chrome Phyrexians behind Venser twitched, but Tezzeret looked at them once and they stopped moving.

When Elspeth reached the nearest surgery, the large orderly Phyrexian raised his meaty arms from the patient and had them severed neatly at the forearm. The next flurried cut came fast on the heels of the first, and the Phyrexian's body slid apart in seven places. The surgeon pulled a syringed claw from the muck in the human's body but was cut down in place, still with one claw in the human's thorax. The Phyrexian doctor that had sliced up the liver looked from Elspeth to its chrome brethren at the doorway. The frantic knight's sword swept down with an overhead strike that split its head and shoulders from each other.

Elspeth turned and hacked at the side of the next Phyrexians, tears running down her cheeks, and strings of drool coming from the corners of her mouth.

There were perhaps twelve Phyrexians when they entered, but they were soon dispatched. Elspeth sunk to the b.l.o.o.d.y, reeking floor, still holding her sword, and began to cry in wrenching sobs. Venser walked toward her. Unexpectedly, the person who had been on the table sat up. With no orderly, the human tried to stand, its stomach open. It fell on the floor. As Venser pa.s.sed the cages, the beings within began to moan. They reached from between the rib bars and clutched at his clothes with weak, white fingers.

Venser reached Elspeth and bent down and put his hand on her shoulder. She jerked away. He glanced at her sword before speaking.

"What is this place?" Venser said. He walked back toward Tezzeret. Koth was standing off to the side with eyes wider than Venser had ever seen. The Vulshok's vents at his ribs were wide and red. Venser could almost see the steam coming out of his ears.

"This is an experimentation chamber," Tezzeret said calmly, looking at his fingernails. Clearly the sight of all the carnage did not bother him in the least.

"And this does not affect you?" Venser said.

"This arm," Tezzeret said. "Is made of etherium, as you know. I had to collect it painstakingly over time, from bodies sometimes. I found them anywhere I could. I pulled them dead out of gutters after bar fights."

Venser stared at the beast standing before him.

"From filth and weak flesh," Tezzeret said, "to this purity." He flexed his shining arm. "Phyrexians strive to have flesh, to be of flesh. They fail to see that flesh is what makes them dirty and weak."

Elspeth's sobs continued. Suddenly Venser was very tired and he felt as though he might be sick. Sick from what Tezzeret was telling him. Sick from what he had just seen. No, there was a level he would not pa.s.s. You could offer him four etherium limbs and he would not take them if the metal had to be extracted from bodies. "Why did you bring us here?" Venser said wearily.

Tezzeret raised his etherium arm and pointed. "For her."

Tezzeret's finger pointed to a cage on the far wall. Koth was closer, and he moved toward it, stepping carefully over the lumped bodies of the Phyrexians. It took Venser longer to reach the cage. Koth was already peering in by the time he arrived. Venser looked at the cage's lock, which resembled nothing so much as a human heart of pocked metal. The artificer whispered words of power, moving mana to his hands from his head, and put his fingers into the lock's suddenly pliable metal. He moved his fingers around until the door swung open. Inside, a figure lay on the floor. Koth walked into the cage. Soon he came out with the female human. She was dressed in leather, an unusual material to use for clothes on Mirrodin, Venser knew. Must be from another plane, he thought. Aside from that she appeared a normal human, except she needed a good scrubbing.

Venser turned to Tezzeret.

"Do you notice anything about her?" Tezzeret said.

Elspeth stopped crying. She looked at the human.

"No," Venser said. "A human from somewhere else."

"Is she from somewhere else?"

"She's not Mirran," Koth said.

"No?" Tezzeret said.

"She's got no metal," Koth said, looking at the human with barely hidden disgust.

"Ahhh," Tezzeret said.

"What is your name?" Venser said.

The woman did not answer. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

"Do you have a name?" Koth said.

"Leave her be," Elspeth said thickly. "Can you not see she is shocked to be free? Unlock the other cages. Let the wretches out."

"I would not do that," Tezzeret said.

"Why?" Venser said.

"They are mostly Phyrexian. They would strive to kill you. This place studies Phyrexian transformation."

"But she has no phyresis," Koth said, staring at the woman. "Not any that I can see."

Tezzeret nodded. His little smile reappeared. "Exactly."

Venser looked back at the woman. All flesh and no infection, he thought. As he watched, she teetered and then sat down abruptly.

Tezzeret gestured to the woman. "They have been looking at this fleshling for some time. She does not succ.u.mb to the oil that spreads their infection. That is why she is not mangled. They pour the oil on her. They inject it under her skin. Still she defies infection. n.o.body knows why."

"She is the key to fighting their vile spread," Elspeth said.

Tezzeret nodded.

"And how are you not infected?" Koth said.

"I have certain other advantages," Tezzeret said. "Leading among these is my facility with etherium."

"But look at her," Koth said. "What I see here is something made to slow us down. This thing cannot travel with us."

The fleshling's head was weaving.

"Is that blood?" Elspeth said.

They rushed over to where the fleshling was sitting. Blood was running freely around her on the metal floor. Venser walked around her looking for the wound. The leather rags she was wearing were sodden on her back. He carefully pulled the leather back, and saw a yawning incision barely held together with crude, pocked staples.

"I am inclined to agree with Koth," Venser said. "How can we move quickly with such a wounded one?"

"Have you seen nothing, artificer?" Tezzeret challenged. "This one is not infected by the plague. That does not interest you?"

"What interests me is your motivation for giving us this being."

Tezzeret smiled. "And what a gift."

Elspeth hurried around behind the fleshling. Just then a shiver went through the muscle of the room's flesh wall. At the far end of the room a single eye snapped open and the golden iris dilated as it took in the light. It pivoted in its socket and focused on the companions. Then it snapped shut.

"This is not as good as it could be," Tezzeret said. He pointed to the door they had come in. Four of his chrome Phyrexians scrabbled to the doorway and hunched, waiting.

A part of the wall near the eye shook and a crease appeared, and then two tight lips opened to reveal sharp teeth. The teeth parted and the mouth, as large as Venser, opened wide. A shriek came from the mouth.

Tezzeret turned to Venser. "You have moments. That is an alarm."

Venser looked back at the fleshling. He knew Elspeth wanted to take the thing, and that Koth did not. His would be the deciding vote.

"She is the only being I have ever met to have this natural ability," Tezzeret said.

Venser knew he was right. Imagine the planes and people they could help if they could find out why why she was immune. Imagine if Karn was infected and the fleshling could somehow bring him back to himself. she was immune. Imagine if Karn was infected and the fleshling could somehow bring him back to himself.

"She travels with us," Venser said.

Koth stomped his foot.

"She has a long cut on her back," Elspeth said, looking up from the fleshing. "I will try to at least close it so we can move."

"Flee, I would say," Tezzeret said. "Separately these creatures can be dealt with. But in the numbers that are rushing toward our location currently..." Tezzeret shrugged.

From the cavern on the other side of the doorway a m.u.f.fled clatter broke the silence, then another.

Koth ran to the doorway. Venser went with him. Elspeth kneeled behind the fleshling, chanting. A milky glow radiated around the two. The chrome Phyrexians looked nervously over their shoulders at Elspeth, of all people. They fear the white warrior, Venser thought. But he had no time to ponder the question. A deep growling roar sounded on the other side of the doorway.

"I'll go have a quick look," Venser said. He closed his eyes. The mana moved into his ears and through his eye sockets and nose, sucking into his brain. In his mind's eye he saw the location in the cavern. He imagined he was hopping and when the pop pop occurred in his ears he opened his eyes. He was standing in a far corner of the cavern. He could see the glowing doorway and the blue Phyrexians staring out. He looked to the right before snapping back into the doorway. occurred in his ears he opened his eyes. He was standing in a far corner of the cavern. He could see the glowing doorway and the blue Phyrexians staring out. He looked to the right before snapping back into the doorway.

"There are many," he said. "And some huge Phyrexian I have not seen before, with a white sh.e.l.l for a head and shoulders. It has many arms and a steely body and legs."

Tezzeret was behind him. "A bastion," he said.

"Is that good or bad?" Koth said.

"It is not good," Tezzeret said. "It was once white. Those are the worst ones: the ones that were crusaders. If there is one, then there will be more."

"I cannot close this wound," Elspeth yelled from the other side of the room. The shriek continued, just high enough to stick in Venser's ears and keep him from thinking quickly. "Keep trying," he said. "Can we jump down the screaming mouth?" he said to Tezzeret.

"I don't know," Tezzeret said. "You might be able to. Watch the teeth."

"You are leaving?"

"Oh, yes," Tezzeret said. "I wanted only to give you this creature."

More clatters sounded from the room. They sounded closer than before.

"But why?"

"I have my reasons for wanting the Phyrexian invasion to have to work hard. To perhaps encounter significant resistance."

"Have you seen Karn?" Venser said. "We need to find Karn."

Tezzeret nodded slowly, apparently thinking about the question Venser had just asked him. "Yes," he said finally. "I have seen the silver golem."

Venser waited. "Where is he?"

"He is in his throne room, of course," Tezzeret said.