But none of the Phyrexians moved. Their red eyes stared until the large one raised its mouth and began to make the noise they'd heard earlier: the sound of choking and screaming. A moment later the others joined in, and then farther away another chorus. Then another, very far away. Soon the Phyrexians were gargling their black oil in unison all around. At that moment Venser realized fear. It came slowly to the artificer. But when he heard the full extent of the infection echoing around them, how many of the scourge frolicked freely in the surrounding terrain, he felt a deep grimness settle on him.

Elspeth was shaking in her own right. But it was not from fear. When Venser glanced to his side, he saw that she could barely hold herself back. Sweat had broken upon her brow, her eyes were wide and wild, and the promise of deep violence surrounded her. He noticed, as he had in Koth's mother's house, webs of spittle at the corners of her mouth. Her blade was drawn in the shining blackness. Elspeth started forward.

"Wait," Venser hissed. For one dire moment he thought the white knight would charge, and they would all be lost. But she stopped.

Irrenphor was known even on Dominaria as one of the most powerful naturally occurring explosives. Venser tugged a thread of mana into him, and flicked a spark at the feet of the Phyrexians. The effect was instantaneous. Colors popped and flashed and everything jumped together and burned. A moment later Venser appeared with a snap snap on a distant precipice. Teleporting always left him with a slight queasiness, but that time it was worse. on a distant precipice. Teleporting always left him with a slight queasiness, but that time it was worse.

A concussive blast shook and the side of the plateau where he had stood a moment earlier.. There were no more gargled calls. There was nothing except the aftermath sound of falling bits of metal. The hole opened by the detonation was as dark as a maw and about the same shape. Koth and Elspeth were alive and struggling to stand at the other end of the high plane.

Venser teleported back onto the plateau to help Elspeth and Koth stand. "They are coming for us even now," Venser said.

Elspeth was still holding her sword, which didn't surprise Venser who had seen how hard she was gripping it before the explosion. Silhouetted against the dark sky was a dark, twisted mountain. Venser turned toward it. "This way," Venser said.

Koth was brushing himself off. "We travel that way anyway, little artificer. The Vault of Whispers lies at the bottom of that mountain."

"That is good. Perhaps Karn is there. Our hope is with the Silver Golem."

"But where does one find this silver golem?" Elspeth said.

"Don't know and don't care," the vulshok said, the red slits at his sides flaring briefly as he followed Venser.

"I knew I had to come long ago," Venser said. "When Karn sent that cryptic message, 'Don't follow me'."

They walked for a time before anyone spoke.

"So you spared no moment to get here," Koth said.

"No, I thought it would be a bad idea to come here," Venser said. "I still do."

"But you feel duty-bound to find your comrade, Karn?" Elspeth said.

Venser was silent a moment. "Yes."

"Even though we kidnapped you?" Koth said.

When he reached the hole created by the explosion, Venser fell into a crouch. He stared at the hole for a very long time, running his hand along the edge and gauging the thickness of the metal exposed. There was a strange, acrid smell-and right next to Venser lay a dark arm composed of stained metal with claws and hanging flaps of greasy flesh. Koth walked carefully around the Phyrexian arm as he approached the edge. Blackness lay in the hole, unbroken blackness and no sound.

"Mirrodin is composed this way. A sh.e.l.l over whatever is underneath." Koth said, carefully sitting on the edge. He could feel a slight draft of warm air rising from the hole. It smelled like a machine.

"What is underneath?" Elspeth said, standing next to Venser.

"I do not truthfully know. As a youngling we would break rules and sneak below, but never too far. Our ore came up to the surface for us and we rarely had to go below to find it."

Venser nodded. "What about other parts of the plane? Do other Mirrans venture below?"

"Who can tell with those types? In the Tangle, the elves huddle in their steely trees, d.a.m.n their eyes. And the leonins of the plains stay in the air and sleep in burrows just beneath the gleaming flatlands-there are no males of note in this race...the ones they have are really just a group of female lovers. They may break one of their fingernails if they ventured under the crust. I have heard that the vedalken of the quicksilver sea live live under the surface, experimenting on humans and eating eyeb.a.l.l.s for power, and one look at those blue b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and who would doubt it." under the surface, experimenting on humans and eating eyeb.a.l.l.s for power, and one look at those blue b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and who would doubt it."

Venser smiled as he listened, but Koth did not seem to notice, and continued his tirade.

"And that brings me to the Mephidross, this stinking swamp. Who knows what happens in these fell lands. The rot has long ago taken away the brains of its denizens. They may live underground all the time...I have heard word that those squirrelly b.a.s.t.a.r.ds do this."

"Your golem is down there?" Elspeth said.

Venser nodded. "Perhaps."

Koth noticed it, as well. "Each of the lacunae is only a great hole where the mana from the deep once punched through and spouted upward."

"You mean that lacunae must have a path down?" Elspeth said.

"I mean that you will not like it when you see the Vault of Whispers."

"Really?" Elspeth said seriously.

"Really."

"How far is the Vault?" Venser said.

"A day, maybe less if certain people would move faster."

Elspeth looked back at where the smoke smell she'd detected before came from. Back to where Koth had gestured that the shaman lived. Then she looked in the direction of the Vault. The memory of the shackle on her ankle made her leg seem heavy, and seeing the Phyrexians made her hands tremble so badly that she could not grasp her sword's pommel. She stopped walking.

"I am not going with you to the Vault of Whispers." Elspeth said suddenly.

"What?" Koth said. "Why?"

"I am going to find the shaman you spoke of earlier."

Koth and Venser stared at her.

"Why?" Venser said.

Elspeth looked at him for a moment. "Do you realize that you shake?" Elspeth said.

Venser raised himself up a jot. "That is not true," he said. But from the vehemence of his tone, Elspeth could tell that he knew exactly what she was talking about. He even shoved his shaking right hand into the tight s.p.a.ce between his under robes and his tunic as she watched.

"I have seen you when you think n.o.body is watching," she said. "You shake, don't you? How long has it been thus that you have had this palsy?"

Venser turned away. "This is absurd," he said.

"I can perhaps heal you," she said. "But the truth is not that I will go to this shaman's place to find herbs to heal. I will leave you because I have been enough of a burden to you."

"A what?" Koth said. "What is this rot you speak?"

Venser's face had drained of its color as he stared at Elspeth. Both of his hands were shoved into his tunic, and his lips were drawn tight in obvious embarra.s.sment. "Go then," he said.

"I will," Elspeth said. She turned and walked in the direction of the wood smoke blotting the horizon.

Koth grunted. "I will go now to the Vault to save my people." He turned and began walking. He kicked at the wet ground as he walked. "And there is no decent ore. So we cannot ride boulders."

Venser followed. "What she said," Venser said. "About my shaking..."

But Koth said nothing, and Venser found he had nothing to say. He walked after the vulshok clutching one hand to the other.

In the darkness the tablelands stretched out to the edge of the known world, it seemed, but Koth led them back down into the dim valleys. The dark sky closed in as the walls narrowed around them to almost total blackness. With the blue lights of Venser's wisps he could see they were walking next to a slough of fetid water, along a mushy bank. Bits of tubes and cracked, buckled walkways littered the side as they moved through.

They had to be careful not to catch bits of themselves on exposed jags. Everything was sharp. Everything poked. Even the inhabitants of Mirran's insides must be metal, Venser thought. He was thirsty, but the filthy water of the Mephidross was dark and foul smelling. He would not touch it.

They walked until all five suns took the sky as a single line rose above the horizon. The world went from darkest dark to nearly blinding sun in a matter of minutes. The sunlight revealed a profoundly changed Oxidda Chain. A puce haze drifted in the valleys. The mountains themselves seemed more spiky and contorted, with edges sprung in wide, torturous curves that made Venser's stomach churn. There was not one sound to be heard in the utter silence. Each of their footfalls echoed loudly away.

Koth took in the new appearance of the Chain with his mouth pressed tight in a line. He stopped and squatted next to what had been a plantlike growth of oxidized metal, barbed thin, and stirring very slightly in the heated breeze. It had become a blackish green color, and sticky to the touch. And it stunk...smelling mostly like burned lead. Koth stood and spat.

"It is worse than when I left. I thought it was bad then."

Venser was squatting next to the metal plant. He took the frond between his fingers and tried to break it from the rest of the plant. It bent and he had to wipe his fingers on his leg before standing.

"Well," Venser said. "It is not very good. I'll say that."

"And," Koth said in a lower voice, "I believe we are being followed."

Venser looked to the side before turning to evaluate the claim. Koth stared at the plant an extra moment before shaking his head and looking back down the valley.

"There is no life on this plane, it appears," Venser said. "I would take even the enemy rather than this vacant place."

Koth looked back the way they had come. He nodded once, and then looked down at his feet before speaking. "The Oxidda was not always as you see it. It had life once," he said. He took a deep breath before continuing. "Not too long ago in the annals of the vulshok, our elders disappeared. This happened all over Mirrodin, I am told. But other creatures lost their elders and segments of their people. The filthy goblins rebounded quickly, of course, as they had little-to-no knowledge to pa.s.s on. To us the loss was very great. Our skill with ore, and smelting too, was compromised.

"Then the metal failed altogether. A flaw found its way into the molten ore and the ingots lost their vigor. Conflict among the tribes erupted. Armed conflict followed.

"And you?" Venser said. "Where did your loyalties lie?"

"I am an alloy," Koth said. "And because of that I have always been...apart. But my bones ring with metal and I was able to drive from the ore the contaminants, but only in small batches. A day's worth at a time. This proved enough ore to give each tribe good metal to work, and they stilled their hands from fighting and took once again to working."

"That was before Phyrexia?" Venser said.

It was as though the word Phyrexia Phyrexia itself made the metal beneath their feet tremble. Each of them glanced around, half expecting to see scourge-beings materialize from the clear air. itself made the metal beneath their feet tremble. Each of them glanced around, half expecting to see scourge-beings materialize from the clear air.

Koth nodded.

Venser coughed. With a start he noticed that his hand was shaking. He stowed it in his tunic. Hopefully his tic wouldn't present itself, as it sometimes did in times of stress. He drove the thought from his mind and looked down at the ground.

"Here is why we cannot leave this place," Venser said. He ran his finger along the underside of the infected plant. Then he held his finger up. It dripped with dark oil of a slight greenish tinge.

"Oil?" Koth said.

"The sp.a.w.n of Phyrexia..." Venser said, "seethes with infection." Venser wiped the sticky substance on his breeches. "Only one drop can yield legions of Phyrexians."

Koth took this information in without expression.

Mirrodin is lost, Venser thought.

"We will win," Koth said.

Venser did not look so sure. He turned toward the path. "Only Karn can stop the Phyrexians, if such a thing can be done here. He created this plane of yours."

"When I am leader non-Mirrans like Phyrexians will be first against the wall," Koth said.

Koth stood and started walking. When Venser heard Koth's words he stood. "I will be sure to be gone by that time then."

Elspeth took the blacksmith's tongs the woman offered. Clasped in the tongs was a crucible full of steaming soup. It had roughly the look and consistency of molten lead, and Elspeth's stomach did not welcome its arrival. "My thanks," Elspeth said, eyeing the soup uncertainly. She put the tongs and the soup down on the table where she was seated.

The woman sat opposite, her eyes lingering on Elspeth's armor, which was carefully laid out on the metal floor.

"It is well wrought," the woman said, her eyes still on Elspeth's armor. "I would not ever take it off."

"Truthfully, I do not feel fully clothed without it," Elspeth said. She pulled her robes tighter around her and took in the surrounds of the hut. Chunks of various rocks swayed on lanyards from the hammered ceiling. The bones and full skeletons of metal creatures were posed and welded to the metal walls around the hut. The air smelled of lead solder and brimstone.

The woman took a fire tool and poked the dung fire in the middle of the floor until flame licked up. "I am Vadi," she said.

"Elspeth."

"Well, Elspeth," Vadi said. "You are paler than any auriok should be. You had better drink my ore stew."

Elspeth looked at the soup, but did not move to pick it up. "How long has the Mephidross swamp been advancing?"

"Who can say? Forever."

"But faster lately?" Elspeth said.

"Yes."

"Are you concerned?" Elspeth said.

The woman shrugged. She was not old, as Koth had made her seem. She was wide-beamed and robust. "Why be concerned?" the shaman said. "I lived through the advent of the green sun, and the disappearance of our elders. What can hurt me now? We are vulshok. We adapt."

Elspeth felt the blood rising to her face. "You will all die, you know."

For the next day the suns above Koth and Venser's heads moved in their prescribed paths. Night was punctuated by the desperate screams of the Phyrexians wandering the rank canyons. But Koth kept their path on small byways known only to him, he said, and they saw none of the enemy for that day. That night they slept in the nostril of an immense statue of metal buried to the top lip. Venser asked who the statue was modeled after and Koth shrugged. "I have never seen its like on Mirrodin," Koth said. "Ours is not a plane of monuments."

"I could teleport us to that mountain," Venser said, gesturing to a distant gas-chimney. Koth fixed him with an even gaze.

"I don't teleport well," Koth said. "I tend to be detrimental to the teleporter's health."

Venser shrugged. "Can I wait for you at the next rise?"