"Where?" Venser said.

"Deeper still. At the heart of this metal clockworks."

At that moment there was a tremendous rattle in the cavern outside the experimentation room. The Phyrexians at the doorway rushed out, followed by Koth. Venser and Tezzeret were last.

The room outside the doorway was filled with Phyrexians of all shapes and sizes. Three creatures with white porcelain crusts for heads towered over the rest, four arms hanging at their sides. Tezzeret's chrome Phyrexians were already tearing into some of the closest creatures. Koth was glowing red and mucking up to his elbows in the thorax of another beast that, as they watched, fell back, a gaping red hole in its chest.

Venser blinked and appeared on the shoulders of one of the bastions. He pulled mana to him and when it was p.r.i.c.kling his fingertips, he spread the back of the creature's porcelain sh.e.l.l and reached in. He was never sure what he was touching, what metal parts, in the Phyrexians, but he dissolved whatever it was. Eventually the creature took a staggered step forward, and then fell limp.

Venser blinked away and back to the doorway before he hit the ground. Tezzeret had not moved.

"Impressive," he said.

"But we cannot fight that army," Venser said. "We need a way out."

Tezzeret sighed, and walked back into the experimentation room. The mouth in the far wall continued screaming. It was all Venser could do to not clap his hands over his ears. Elspeth was still kneeling and chanting, with her hands on the fleshling. The sound of the fray outside the doorway was a loud rumble.

Tezzeret touched the wall, and another mouth opened. The mouth had no teeth. Venser, strangely, found himself feeling uneasy at the prospect of being swallowed by a toothless mouth.

"I'm not altogether sure where this one goes," Tezzeret said. "But in general the ones without teeth go upward. The larger the teeth the deeper the way goes. At least I've found that mostly to be true. Go to the furnace layer. That is over and up. The heat will tell you."

"Thank you," Venser said.

"No," Tezzeret said. "You have helped me more than you know. I would not have helped you otherwise."

A shriek from outside the doorway drew their attention.

"I will not remain around here to meet that," Tezzeret said.

With that, Tezzeret touched the wall and an extremely long-toothed mouth opened wide. He turned and winked at Venser before stepping in. Venser couldn't help but wonder if Tezzeret was at that moment traveling to Karn's throne room. He almost asked if he could accompany him. But the moment pa.s.sed and Tezzeret was gone. After a couple of seconds the mouth closed.

Elspeth stirred. "I cannot fully heal this wound," she said. "It is too deep. I do not know if something vital was removed. The best I can do is close it so we can travel."

"So she can move?"

"Not by herself. We will have to a.s.sist her."

He nodded. "Well, that would be our mouth," he said, pointing at the toothless maw.

Venser walked across the room and looked out at the cavern. More Phyrexians had arrived. Tezzeret's chromes were still fighting hard, but their numbers were halved. As Venser watched, one of them received the huge ball arm from a huge Phyrexian on the top of its head. The head crushed down and the Phyrexian stopped moving and crumpled. Koth was as red as an ember, taking great, heaping handfuls of metal out of a Phyrexian three times his size. The metal went from molten to slag the moment it left the vulshok's hand and fell clanking to the metal floor.

When the Phyrexian fell, Venser yelled and beckoned Koth, who followed. The heat that he gave off as he approached made Venser step back.

"We're going now," Venser said.

"What? With all this fun to be had?" Koth said.

But he followed. Elspeth helped the fleshling to her feet. With her arm over Elspeth's shoulders, the white warrior led her to the mouth Venser had pointed out. The fleshling did not look good to Venser's eyes. She was pale and drawn. Her hair was dirty and infested with something that matted the locks. Bugs, he could not stand bugs-especially the ones that lived on the human body. But Mirrodin would not have bugs. Mirrodin would have something like bugs, but infinitely worse. A small shiver ran down Venser's spine as he stepped up to the toothless mouth, waiting.

Koth noticed the shiver, apparently, and interpreted it as disgust of the mouth. "Don't like the look of this one myself," he said.

Venser glanced at Koth before he understood. "Oh, yes, the etherium-arm creature said the ones without teeth lead upward."

"Don't know if I trust that one."

"I know I do not," Venser said, smiling.

Koth nodded. The walls buckled somehow and a sound even more terrible than the screaming mouth rent the air. A sound like sh.e.l.ls crushed under foot. Or skulls. The whine and snap of metal breaking came from the next room, and then the clank of many feet rushing over metal.

"We go now," Venser said. Just as he spoke the mouth began to close. Koth stepped forward and seized the lips and with some effort wrenched them wider. Elspeth and the fleshing stepped into the mouth.

"This will hurt," Elspeth was telling the fleshling as they disappeared into the maw.

"You go," Koth said, when Venser gestured for the vulshok to go.

"Go ahead."

Just as a bleeding Phyrexian stuck its small head into the doorway leading to the cavern- Venser jumped head first into the oral cavity.

The sensation was different with the toothless mouth. It was tighter and slower. Many times Venser felt his breath would not hold out as the throat carried him upward in the way a snake might move its prey down the length of it. He found he could breathe better if he brought his arm up and held the bend of it over his eyes, creating a small air pocket. It was not comfortable, n.o.body would ever say that, but at least he did not feel like he was drowning. At one point he stopped. For that terrible time Venser was sure the Phyrexian whose mouth they were in knew a way to force regurgitation. But that did not happen and eventually he started moving again. The turns were few and Venser was glad for that, as they squeezed his body even more. After what seemed like forever, he was spit out and lay panting on the floor. Elspeth and the fleshling were leaning against the wall. But the wall was strange and bending, and neither Elspeth nor the fleshling looked comfortable.

The room was small, almost tiny. If Venser had ever imagined what it would be like to be inside a stomach, that would have been what he imagined. It was roughly circular and soft all over. The hole they had all been spit from opened again and pushed out Koth, who lay panting in the goo that covered them all.

"It's like being born again," the vulshok said, when he had his breath. Venser could not help but chuckle. Elspeth smiled. The fleshling blinked.

Venser touched the wall. Nothing happened. There were no other doors, just the tiny room. It seemed to get smaller after Venser touched the wall. He went to another side and touched the wall again. A mouth opened. A mouth with teeth.

"Try the other wall," Koth said.

Venser did, and a toothless mouth creased into existence.

"How is it there are mouths now when there were round, lidded doorways before?" Elspeth said. "When we started this trip."

Venser shrugged. "I think we are deeper than we were when we started. It seems we travel inside Phyrexians after we pa.s.s some point. That would be my guess."

But the mouth that had carried them out opened. From down its gullet, they heard the struggling cries of many Phyrexians.

"They are coming up after us," Koth said.

The next mouth appeared the same as the last they had used, and Elspeth went first. Koth followed and then Venser.

The trip was much the same as before, only longer. The mouth dropped them in a small fleshy room with a doorway into another vast cavern, the walls of which were covered in pipes and tubes.

The temperature was noticeably hotter. A glow emanated from far away across the cavern, and they walked that way. The fleshling walked between Elspeth and Koth, with her arms over both of their shoulders. Venser would not get too near the unwashed human.

They walked until Elspeth called a halt. The glow in the room only lit the lower portions, but upper reaches were dark. It was into that darkness that Elspeth pointed.

"What is that?" Elspeth said.

Venser squinted into the darkness. High up in the shadows a small form moved. It appeared to be flapping, but was very small and far away. As his eyes became accustomed to peering into the darkness, another form flapped itself into focus. Still another small thing was flying lower and the artificer made out its general form. It was very small, about as long as the last digit of his thumb. It had fleshy, beige membranes that it flapped, trailing bits of itself behind. Its body was round and oval shaped.

Next to Venser, Koth stared up at the same form. "It can't be," he said.

"What?" Elspeth said, looking at the vulshok.

"It's impossible."

"Do speak, vulshok," Venser said, staring at Koth.

"That," Koth said, "is a blinkmoth, unless I am a fool."

"I will not comment on whether or not you are a fool," Venser said, looking back at the strangely saggy little form flying at the edge of the darkness above. He had heard of the elusive creatures, of course, from Karn. He even happened to know that the drink he took to stave off the palsy contained some of their potent distillate.

They were farmed to near extinction long ago, Karn had told him. He had also told him how sad it made him that the only native life-form on Mirrodin had been used so poorly. But looking upon the rare creatures all he could think was how ugly they looked.

"How many are there up there?" Elspeth said.

Koth was beyond words, staring up at the moths.

"Four perhaps," Venser said. "Should we see? I think we can risk some light." Without waiting for an answer, Venser snapped a blue wisp into existence. He flung it up. The strand traveled up and up, and up some more. The ceiling was exceedingly high, but soon the wisp stopped. Venser concentrated on it and it began to glow brightly.

"Blazing ore!" Koth hissed.

The entire upper portion of the cavern was thick with the moths, flapping and b.u.mping into one another. Koth looked around the room.

"Was this a farm?" he said. "I did not know they existed underground. They are never found in numbers such as this anymore. Never." He looked back to the blinkmoths.

"They are the only natives to this place and were made by Karn's hand," Venser said. "Therefore, they are living manifestations of his creative essence."

"Well, they do not fill me with awe," Elspeth said. She squinted at the other side of the huge s.p.a.ce. "They are rather runty little things, in fact." She kept squinting.

"They were supposed to be gone long ago," Koth said. "Gone to vedalken harvest."

"They live, all right," Elspeth said. "It is us I worry about. I see shapes advancing on us."

Koth's eyes instantly turned to where Elspeth was staring. Many dark shapes no larger than the blinkmoths were loping toward them across the wide room.

"They are Phyrexians," Venser said, still watching the blinkmoths. The more he watched them the more he wanted some of his potion. The more his chin began to shake.

"How do you know?" It was Koth who spoke.

"I can feel their metal feet vibrating the floor."

The others were quiet as they felt for the vibrations. The floor trembled under their feet.

"There are very many of them," Koth said.

They were advancing from all sides, and in large numbers. The Phyrexians surged toward the island of blue light cast by Venser's wisps.

Koth was already as red as an ember. He cracked his neck and stretched his arms behind his back in preparation. Elspeth's sword was out. She held it loosely at her side watching the howling h.o.a.rd advance on them. Venser was fighting hard to resist the desire rising in his chest to pull the tiny cork out of his flask and drain the few drops remaining down his throat. The three Planeswalkers had formed a triangle around the fleshling, who stood watching the advancing Phyrexians with a look of resolute detachment.

"How many are their numbers?" Koth asked.

"Plenty for all," Elspeth hissed.

Then they were close, the Phyrexians, and Elspeth raised her sword and began running. She crashed into the first line of the enemy at a brisk trot-cutting three down with strikes too fast to see. The Phyrexians in her area trampled one another as they struggled to form a dense clump around her while she moved about her grim work, chopping each and every one of them down. In the red-tinged light, with Venser's blue wisps overhead, her sword blazed a bright white, and many of the Phyrexians fell back, screaming.

Koth had grown long columns of loosely held rock out of his wrists which he used as whips. With these he was able to crush lines upon lines of Phyrexians.

But still more of the gabbling, dripping abominations pushed forward.

Venser fell back to stand next to the fleshling. When seven Phyrexians got too near, Venser blew out a cloud that caused their metal substructures to turn to the consistency of warm lead, and they fell apart into messes of writhing skin and sinew.

The pile of Phyrexian dead around Elspeth got higher and higher until Venser could not easily see the white warrior. But he could see her bright blade, and unless he was very wrong, it was not swinging as fast as it had been. Koth too was letting his rock whips rest on the floor as he huffed.

Venser watched a force of perhaps twenty Phyrexians break away from the group awaiting Elspeth's attention and circle around to him and the fleshling. Venser looked past them. He noticed that the darker, far away parts of the huge room were without Phyrexians. He could teleport them there and stage attacks from that relative safety.

With the fleshling's hand in his, Venser closed his eyes. He mouthed the words of power and felt the pull, then pop that told him he had left. But something was wrong. When he opened his eyes, both he and the fleshling were floating momentarily high above the ground, in the flock of blinkmoths. Far below, Venser saw Elspeth and Koth battling the Phyrexians in two pools of light. A blinkmoth flew into his check and another against his leg. The fleshling was convulsing and jerking on the end of his arm and Venser himself felt a tremendous fluttering all through his body like he would vomit three hundred times at once.

Then they began to fall.

He closed his eyes, but found it difficult to find the words that had come so easily before they appeared in the group of blinkmoths. As they picked up speed Venser set his mind on the floor, imaging what it looked like.

They were plummeting downward.

Venser took a last breath. He had only moments, he knew. He forced the words out of his mouth and with a sudden pop pop they appeared sprawled and dizzy on the hot floor. they appeared sprawled and dizzy on the hot floor.

Off to their side, Elspeth's sword flashed and the Phyrexians screamed in the rosy light. Koth's rock whips boomed on the floor. But Venser knew he could not stand. He lay with all of his limbs trembling so that he could not trust them to move where he told them. His heels banged on the floor rhythmically and his neck was jerking his chin back and forth. A blinkmoth crawled down his neck.

The fleshling was standing above him in the dimness, her eyes glowing a slight blue as she looked down at the artificer. Even in his state, Venser knew that the fleshling's eyes were not glowing before he had teleported with her. His trembling continued until suddenly it stopped. He lay gasping and exhausted until the last tremors finally left. It had never been that bad, even after that first teleport that caused the whole mess.

Still the fleshling stared down at Venser with her blue eyes glowing impa.s.sively. "I can feel the blinkmoths inside me," the fleshling said. "I can feel them flying in my skull."

There was a certain calmness to her that put Venser in mind of Karn. She was telling him there were moths in her skull as calmly as she might that she preferred cloudy skies to sunny.

"I feel...different," she said.

"I also do," Venser said. It was true. He felt much worse than he had before. Plus, his right hand would not totally stop shaking. Even if he concentrated, it would not stop. Concentration always stopped it in the past.

Venser managed to push himself up off the floor. His head spun and he sat down hard. Still the fleshling watched him. "Help me up," Venser said.

She bent and took Venser's hand and helped him to his feet. He felt awful, like his brain was still half-materialized in his head. He knew that each teleport made his condition worse, but it was a drastic worsening of symptoms.

"You are wounded?" the fleshling said, c.o.c.king her head to the side as she waited for the answer.

"Yes. Are you?"

"No," the fleshling said. "I feel every pore in my body."