Indeed, Venser thought. He knows more than any they have encountered so far. He knows more than he should. The others could have been lying, of course. It is possible that many others know of this Glissa and Geth holding Karn. Have those others remained mute for reasons of their own? On the other hand, a guide suddenly appears offering to take them to exactly where they want to go. He gives them information they have never heard before, and asks them to follow him into the deepest regions of Mirrodin. Everything about this being standing in the shadows set the hairs on Venser's arm standing.

"Danger," Elspeth was saying, "does not scare us."

Koth, standing back a bit, adjusted his stance.

Venser cut in, "How do you feel about Phyrexia?" It was a strange question, Venser knew. And the shadow sensed the trap immediately. Venser could tell by the care he took in choosing his words.

"I will die stopping this infestation."

"That's not exactly an answer to the question," Venser said. "More a statement of fact." Venser knew he was being nitpicky and small, but he wanted to be certain that they were not being led by a Phyrexian agent or, worse, by one of Ezuri's people.

"Why are you in the dark like that?" Koth said.

The figure stepped forward. Venser could easily see where the blotches had covered his body, and where his skin had been peeling away in the most advanced stage of phyresis he had seen in the settlement so far. But he had obviously received the cure from the fleshling, for the blotches were no longer black, but pinkish. The places where his skin had been peeling had shiny pink scars. Still, he was disturbing to see.

"I will not lie to you," the figure said. "I know what I know because I had an arrangement with Glissa in the depths."

"That was before you were healed by the fleshling?" Venser said.

"Yes," the human said.

"And you know our plan, I am sure?" Venser said. It was a test. If he acted ignorant, then that would tell Venser certain things.

"If I were you I would take Melira to Karn and try to heal him, if he is infected."

"Why would you take us back down if you are now healed?" Elspeth said. "You are free now."

"I have my own debts to repay," the human said.

Venser had already decided to go with the man, but he wanted to know where the human's allegiances lay. It was acceptable if he was a spy for the Phyrexians or Ezuri, as long as Venser knew it. A spy could be very useful, if properly utilized. But the uneasy feeling in Venser's stomach did not leave when the man had stepped out of the shadows. It did not leave even when the man bowed and stepped away to let Elspeth, Koth, and Venser talk.

"He is a spy," Koth said. "I am sure."

"How are you so sure?" Elspeth said. She has no trust in him anymore, Venser thought.

"It is too good," Koth said. "He gives us everything we want."

"I do not think so," Elspeth said.

"You trust him?" Koth said.

"Yes."

"But you are a fool," Koth said. "You trust too easily and see everything as good and bad."

True again, Venser thought.

"But why would he be the spy you say he is?" Elspeth said.

"It is hard to understand another's motivation," Venser said. "They may have his wife or child. They may have promised him certain things as reward for his efforts."

"Or they may have killed his parents," Koth said grimly.

"The point is, we do not know," Venser said.

"But we travel with him anyway? A potential enemy?" Elspeth said.

"He is only an enemy if he thinks we know he is an enemy," Venser said. "If he thinks he has fooled us, then he will inadvertently tell us everything we need to know."

"a.s.suming he is actually an agent of Phyrexia," Elspeth said.

"True."

"If he is not an agent, then your thinking will lead us to confusion and delay."

"I suppose that is true."

"Really," Koth interjected. "What other choices do we have?"

"Also true. But everything is true if you ponder it the right way."

That night they slept against the wall. The dim light in the room never went out, and when they woke it was to the eerie feeling that they had never rested at all.

The guide did not appear. They began to walk and after a time they found the guide. He was alone and sitting in a dark hollow chewing on something and spitting around his boots.

"Are we ready?" he said, standing. A plain-looking human, Venser thought. He had no sword but carried a strange geared bow, a canteen, and a small pack. His boots were newly made, Venser noticed. New boots could mean all sorts of things, most of them bad.

New boots or not, the guide took them along the wall for a while until they found a hole. It was cut out of the wall and as large as a human man. The guide ducked his head and walked through the darkened hole.

They walked in darkness for a time. A choked call echoed through the vast cavern they were walking in. The guide was sometimes by their side and sometimes nowhere to be found.

"How do we hear the Phyrexian's calls but they do not find us?" Elspeth said.

No one answered.

"It is strange," Venser agreed.

"They do find us, or haven't you noticed?" Koth said.

"I have not seen any other pa.s.sages or doors," Venser said, changing the subject. "But they must be here. Where is the guide?"

"I have not seen him in...," Elspeth said.

It was hard to judge time and Elspeth let her words hang unfinished.

They walked back to the door they had just come through.

"Do you remember how many hearts were in the room with the small Phyrexian?" Elspeth asked.

"There were thirty-three," Venser said.

"What were they used for?" Koth pressed. He had perked up remarkably, Venser thought, after being cast out by his people again. What a strange being, Venser thought.

"Who is to say?" Venser grunted.

"What if something took them?" Koth proposed.

"Something might have. Maybe that small silver creature that led us for a time," Venser said.

"And now we have another guide," Elspeth said. "Who is also leading us unbidden."

"I too am suspicious," Venser said.

They searched the walls for another door. Covered with metal and flesh, the veinlike tubes that glistened and squished when they parted them to look for a door made Venser feel as if he were searching through the intestines of a huge creature. And he found nothing.

"Why would the silver creature lead us and then disappear?" asked Elspeth. She turned to Venser-dark, sticky oil covered her hands and arms. The more time he spent around the white warrior, the less he felt he knew about her, and the more nervous she made him. The way she shook when she fought Phyrexians put his hairs up. They were the enemy, there was no doubt of that, but that someone could harbor such a complete hatred of anything made him uneasy. What did you have to do to get on Elspeth's list of hated things, and what would you do if you did?

"Have you found something?" Koth said.

Venser turned back to his search. He looked and looked but it was Koth who finally found a small hole behind a bank of articulated columns of shiny metal, which swayed slightly to an unheard rhythm. The columns moved to the side when he pushed on them. The door that lay behind was perhaps the perfect size for a seven-year-old human child. Except its handle was smeared with blood and clots had formed in the drip line that stretched to the floor.

"It stretches," Koth said, reaching down and pulling the edge of the fleshy hole wider. "Even I can fit." The small door was merely a plug. They pulled it off and propped it against the ductwork.

"Do we go down this?" Elspeth said.

"Why not?" Koth demanded.

The guide stepped out of the shadows. Venser had the strong feeling that he had been watching them the whole time. But why would that be?

"We may travel that way," the guide said.

Koth nodded at him and then turned to Elspeth.

"We go this way," Venser said, with more force than he meant.

Elspeth nodded.

Koth looked away.

"Are we ready?" Venser repeated.

"Yes, I am ready," Koth said. "But I do not follow your orders."

"You don't follow my orders," Venser repeated. "Then will you take a suggestion suggestion and tell fair Elspeth and myself if you are ready to walk through this door and confront what may be there?" and tell fair Elspeth and myself if you are ready to walk through this door and confront what may be there?"

"As I said, I am ready."

"All right, I will go first." Venser went through the door feetfirst. It was not a pleasant sensation pushing through the s.p.a.ce, which seemed to close in on you from all sides, as if there was water on the other side. He could hear the echoed reverberations of movement all around him, and he could hear strange modulations of sound. For one moment he thought he heard the deep boom of Karn's voice crying out in rage. But he had never known his old mentor and friend to make sounds like those. They had to have been made by something else.

The door Venser exited was ma.s.sive-easily as large as seven humans standing feet on heads-and it stank of rotting flesh. Stinking or not, it was tiny in comparison to the s.p.a.ce it opened into. They were on a ledge that looked over an absolutely ma.s.sive cavern of metal. Colossal columns of metallic material stood at its center and long tendrils attached each to the other like rope to a pole. Sometimes many tendrils met at a huge chunk. The chunks were easily as large as rooms.

"What is that?" Venser said, his voice echoing away across the enormous s.p.a.ce.

"Don't know," Koth said. "Don't have any idea."

"How large would you say this cavern is?" Venser said.

Elspeth shrugged. "Leagues," she said. "Perhaps larger."

"And yet these columns continue. Look there, that column seems to have grown into the metal of the wall. I wonder if it keeps its shape under the metal? I wonder if the strands do?"

They all looked to the guide, who stood back a bit. He looked back at them.

"The center of Mirrodin is solid," Koth said. "We vulshok know this. It is the heart of our ore. We explore and use our geomancy to delve with sound through the core."

"This does not appear solid," Venser said.

"How can we ever know the truth of this situation?" Elspeth said. "We waste time surmising."

"This place is Phyrexian corruption," Koth said. Clearly disgusted, he turned away from the view.

But Venser did not turn away. "Very strange," he said. "Very strange."

"Where do we go?" Koth said.

"There. This trail before us leads that way...to where that strand is melted and its inner tube is exposed," the guide said, pointing.

"We walk into into one of those strands? I think not," Koth said. one of those strands? I think not," Koth said.

"It is through these that one moves around the core of Mirrodin."

"How do you know?" Elspeth said.

"I know," the guide said, his face expressionless.

"It makes sense," Venser said.

"How does that make sense?"

"Well," Venser said. "Do you see how the top of that column is dark and crumbling? It is clearly dead. Yet below it the metal is greenish and healthy."