It took Geth a moment to piece through what Tezzeret said. His anger seemed to swell even more when understanding bloomed on his face.

"Are you both done?" Glissa said.

"I have always dreamed of being flesh," Karn said. "Metal is cold. Flesh is a meat machine. Flesh is metal."

Tezzeret smiled at Geth, who was looking down at his one good claw.

"I have received word of a totally flesh being," Glissa said. Karn suddenly looked up at her.

"Flesh is a cage too," Karn yelled.

Glissa ignored him. "Would either of you have any idea how we could use such a freak?"

Both Geth and Tezzeret shook their heads.

"You'll have to be creative," Tezzeret said. "I would have no idea what to do with such an anomaly."

"You lie too well," Glissa said. "It gives you away. Your master sent you here to a.s.sist, I believe."

"That is what he said," Tezzeret said.

"I believe there is a certain caveat to this endeavor. She cannot be infected by our gift." gift."

"Really?" Tezzeret said. "Perhaps she should be released to the rebel settlement."

Then Karn began bellowing. "Maybe what we think makes us free is nothing more than a symptom of our cage," he said.

All three stopped and turned. Karn was regarding his own steely hand very closely.

"I like that," Tezzeret said suddenly. "What he just said." He swept his arm toward the throne. "What if all this is holding us back?"

Glissa put her hand to her head and closed her eyes.

"I will give you more experimenters," Glissa said. "Find why this flesh creature refuses to be infected."

But Tezzeret did not acknowledge what she said. He stared keenly at Karn.

"We make our own cages," Tezzeret said.

"Did you hear, creature," Geth said, stepping forward.

Tezzeret raised his eyes slowly until they met Geth's. Geth stepped back.

"If there were worms on Mirrodin," Tezzeret said, watching Karn sink onto his knees and hands, and then begin walking on them on all fours. "He is at the point where he would begin eating them."

But Glissa would not be ignored, and she clearly had not the slightest fear of Tezzeret. "Do you understand your a.s.signment, or do I need to have your arm taken off so you remember it?"

"You will need to have my arm taken off," Tezzeret said matter-of-factly, not taking his eyes off Karn as he spoke.

But then Karn straightened and stood. He looked down at Geth, Glissa, and Tezzeret. "Why do you torture me so?"

"You are changing, Father," Glissa said. "We are not torturing you. We have made this change ourselves already."

"Speak for yourself, oddity," Tezzeret said.

"But who am I?" Karn said.

"You are the Father of Machines," Geth said.

"I have known that name before, from a dream," Karn said. "But he was not me."

Tezzeret yawned. "He's you all right. Just ask either of these two."

"Who is this?" Karn said lucidly-pushing his chin at Tezzeret.

"That is Tezzeret, Father," Glissa said. "He has been sent to help us."

"Help how?"

"Help us finish our work here, I don't know," Glissa said, suddenly frustrated.

Karn looked from one to the other of them. "You are all three mad. I am leaving this place." He began walking toward the wall. Glissa did nothing to stop him.

Karn reached the nearest wall and tapped twice on it. Nothing happened. He tapped twice on it again. Still nothing happened. He turned back. "What have you done with my portals?"

"They are no longer yours," Glissa said. "They are ours, and we are you."

"Oh," Karn said, as casually as if she had told him the temperature of the air. But in the next moment the brightness seemed to drain out of Karn's eyes, and he slipped down the wall until his feet were bent under him. The fine droplets of oil appeared all over his body again.

"His body, or his mind, will not fully accept what we give," Glissa said.

"He is not one of us," Geth said.

Glissa turned on him. "He is as much Phyrexian as I am. Let n.o.body say otherwise. We need Karn if we are ever to fully integrate Mirrodin."

"How did you become so wise to the plan?" Tezzeret demanded.

"You already know more than your mandate dictates," Glissa said. "Now know this: you will infect this flesh creature and find the rebel settlement. Kill everything and bring their bodies back so we can utilize them. Bring the fully infected flesh creature to me personally. I like flesh. I find it interesting. I have my own collection, you know."

"Is that so?" Tezzeret said. "It disgusts me. Flesh is weakness."

"Yes!" Geth said, raising his one good claw.

"Silence, fool," Glissa said to Geth, who put his arm down. "Flesh has its uses." She turned back to Tezzeret. "Now, you will travel on your little quest with my own guards. Do you understand?"

Tezzeret regarded her coolly.

"Do you understand?" Glissa repeated.

"Yes."

"Excellent. Now then," Glissa walked over to where Karn lay crumpled on the floor, panting. She took hold of his arm with her hand and the hooked part of her scythe hand. "Come, Father, why not sit comfortably atop your throne."

But she could not budge the silver golem. "You have taken my portals." He pulled his arm free and leveled a blow against the wall, denting it deeply.

Tezzeret tried to imagine what a blow like that would do to Glissa, or Geth for that matter. Tezzeret knew what he would do if Karn tried it with him: he'd throttle the life out of the mad b.a.s.t.a.r.d, no matter how much he respected his craftsmanship. Or at least he'd try. The truth was that Tezzeret loved what Karn was. Karn, the creator of planes and organizer of metals. To see such a magnificent artificer brought to that kind of subjugation was a blemish on what it meant to bend metal.

"Leave him be," Tezzeret said. "There squats the creator of Mirrodin," Tezzeret said, suddenly serious. "Neither of you have sung metals to form, have given everything you are to be great. You do not have the right to be in the same room with him."

"But you do?" Glissa said.

"I have stolen, killed, and sc.r.a.ped for the ability to create etherium. n.o.body ever gave me an ounce of value. I took it and now I am one of very few to control this great metal that is essence."

"Are you finished, philosopher?" Glissa said.

"You promised me I would have a force of my own," Tezzeret said through unsmiling lips.

"I did, didn't I?" Glissa said. "But who trusts the word of a Phyrexian? Honor is a social construct. We do not follow constructs. We follow hunger. Anyway, who are we kidding? You want more than a force, you want an army. You have been building an army. We know this. We have been watching."

A force of ten Phyrexians slinked through the far door. They were each one worked through with patina-covered copper, with gray muscle herniating out between the gaps in the jagged structure. Their eyes were black and dripping.

"You can steal, kill, and sc.r.a.pe your way to the settlement with my minions. "You will find these harder to control than your blue ones," Glissa promised. "Now go."

Geth made to follow Tezzeret.

"No, Geth," Glissa said. "You stay. We will discuss what to do with enemies of the oil."

Geth grinned as Tezzeret pa.s.sed.

"Symptoms of our cage!" Karn bellowed.

As Tezzeret left the chamber, he heard Karn's silver fingertips sc.r.a.ping the metal floor.

The middle hole dropped them, as though in free fall. They had found the holes lined up one after the other and as each smelled as dank and foul as another, they chose the middle one. Much of the time Venser felt like he was traveling upside down. Some of the turns were so abrupt that his elbows slammed into the side of the strangely flexible tube. Other times the tube traveled straight. At one point the tube traveled straight for so long they actually stopped moving and had to crawl until they began to slide.

The speed picked up quickly and continued that way for so long that Venser seriously considered teleporting away. Yet still the speed increased, the turns coming one after the other without warning. Venser could hear Koth muttering as they skidded through the tunnel. Before long, even the usually quiet Elspeth began to bellow and bang her heels on the tube. Finally the chute dumped them in an unceremonious heap on the smooth floor of another vast room, gasping and blinking and stunned in the light.

Unlike any other room Venser had seen under Mirrodin, the room was bright. Very bright. It was as if its own sun had risen and sat directly overhead. They struggled to their feet and wandered, blinded, holding each other's sleeves like children, until Venser b.u.mped into a wall and they all put their backs to its coolness and slid down onto the floor.

"Can you see?" Koth said.

"No," Venser said at last. When he opened his eyes the light hurt deep in his head. Still, he had hoped Elspeth would respond so he could gauge just how disturbed the tube had made her. From the sound of her cries as they slid, Venser wanted to know if she had come unhinged.

"Hold up your hand," Koth said. "Peer through the cracks between your fingers."

Venser brought up his filthy hand and rested it on his brow. Through the s.p.a.ce between his middle and first fingers he was able to see without the sharp pain.

The ball of light was still blazing in the ceiling. The floor continued to vibrate. Sometimes the vibrations were more and sometimes less. But the light that burned down on them was as constant as any machine.

"My job in their prison," Elspeth said in a voice made rough by her prolonged bawl in the tube, "was to cut down the bodies the Phyrexians left behind. They liked to play and experiment and do other things. They would drive spikes through the s.p.a.ce between the heel and tendon and hang their victims upside down. It was a prison."

"Yes," Venser said. "You told us that."

"No, I mean for Phyrexians," Elspeth said. "They took our parts for themselves. They are nothing more than perverse machines that want to masquerade as flesh and blood creatures, so they dress in our muscles, skin, and viscera."

"They imprison their own?" Koth said after a time.

"Yes. The imprisoned ones experimented on us to keep quiet. At night they were mostly locked in their own cages by other Phyrexians."

"That is fascinating," Venser said. "And how did they treat prisoners of their own kind, the Phyrexians?"

"With deference, almost kindness, if that is possible," Elspeth said. "If one of the prisoners was especially wild, some of the guards would collect around the door and sing to him."

"Sing?"

"Well," Elspeth said, "it did not sound like our singing. It was terrifying to hear."

"So you were a distraction?" Koth said.

"Yes. A distraction."

"And how are you here standing before us?" Koth said.

"Have some respect," Venser said.

But Elspeth put a gloved hand on Koth's shoulder. "Perhaps they did not prefer children? I do not know why. I ask myself that question quite often."

Koth nodded before turning and gazing between his fingers at the scene. Venser waited to hear if Elspeth said anything more about her time in the Phyrexian prison. When she didn't continue, Venser had a look at their surroundings-a truly vast s.p.a.ce with flat floor and the light beating down. Venser could make out neither form nor the far-off shapes of doors. "I can't see anything out there," he said.

"Me neither," Koth said. "But I will tell you one thing. Without water we'll be hard pressed to last long in this room."

"Do you feel that vibration?" Elspeth said.

"Yes."

"That sound concerns me. It stops and starts."

"Let us see," Venser said.

With their hands resting on their brows, they walked forward in no particular direction. There were no landmarks so one direction was as good as any other. As they walked, their footfalls echoed away in the absolute stillness, punctuated by the sudden vibrations.

"Do you suppose those are the echoes from our feet returning to us?" Elspeth said. Once again, the quavering edge to her voice alarmed Venser.

"I thought of that," Venser said, "but no. Those vibrations are something else. They are not regular enough to be our footfalls."