Robert B.Wintermute - The Quest for Karn

To the left, a huge square set of meat steps extended up in a series of turns that ended at a set of what look suspiciously like a wooden gallows. There were pieces of metal hammered together unevenly and at odd angles. A single chain hung unmoving from the edge of the hammered-together structure.

A warm wind stirred their sweat-soaked hair. Venser took off his helmet.

Venser had not at first realized just how large the room was. As he looked, its walls seemed to stretch far, far away. Yet another larger room. He could see lines of smoke in the distance as if a brush fire were burning. But what was there to burn down in these metallic bowels?

More movement along the walls near the door … Venser turned in time to see a circular crease appear in the wall. Another crease appeared down the middle of the circle. All the creases split open and from its epicenter stepped Phyrexians, one after another.

Something had been moving in the barred portal to the right of the newly formed hole, but when the Phyrexians stepped out, all movement ceased. Then whatever was in the barred room started thrashing and clicking, as if the room on the other side of the barred portal was full of giant insects all clicking together in a maddening frenzy.

What stepped out of the round portal was even more shocking. A line of ten thin beings stood before the door. Each of the beings stood in exactly the same way. Each looked at the party with its white, porcelain face cocked to the right. Eyes that were no more than dark holes bored into the face stared with neither lid nor iris. Their mouths were nothing more than expressionless notches. Their bodies were an exterior, shell-like white porcelain. But underneath the filth- and oil-smeared ceramic the creatures were composed of barbed, dim gristle.

They took a step forward in unison. Large barbed metal wings snapped out from their backs and spread wide. A moment later the Phyrexians took flight. They ascended high into the air. The chamber seemed to have no ceiling, and for a terrible moment, Elspeth lost sight of them.

It was Koth who found them in the dark air. “To the right, coming low,” he bellowed.

They looked right and there were the ten skimming the floor with their sharp fingers spread wide, ready to rake the party from their boots.

Venser breathed deeply and in his cranium he imagined the mana moving the turns and curls of his brain, lighting the regions until it glowed from within. Then he imagined a blue smoke coming from his nose as he repeated the rounded syllables of the incantation. His eyes pulsed blue. Their bodies doubled, and then doubled again, six of them stood in a rough line against the flying Phyrexians. Then their bodies copied again, and again.

Four Elspeths drew swords and fell into a wide stance. Four Koths began to grunt and growl the spells of incineration and blaze. Koth raised his hands and four huge balls of fire blasted from his fingertips at the Phyrexians. They dodged the balls, but Venser watched as the fire shot across the room and did not stop. The balls streaked for as long as Venser was watching. The enemy was almost upon them before he took his eyes off the fireballs.

Elspeth stepped into the Phyrexians and brought her sword’s blade down in an overhead attack. As she did so, the steel flashed and blurred into a mass of flashing blades. But something was different. Instead of the sound of thousands of swishing swords Venser was used to hearing, he heard thousands of clanging sounds. Thousands of glancing blows. One of the Phyrexians did find its torso split, and with the same rapt expression on its plain face, it fell in two pieces.

Four Koths seized Phyrexian wrists and spun to the left, but only one actually cast its foe into the gallow-like structure made of meat, where it hit hard so that the pieces of metal at the top vibrated like a tuning fork and the creature did not move again.

Venser pulled more power from the folds of his cranium. He dodged to the left to avoid the pocked claws of a Phyrexian that had guessed which Venser was real. As he passed he touched the creature’s leg. A blue charge traveled up the leg and into the barbed flesh. The charge circled and shot along all straight angles. Finally it found the creature’s skull. The Phyrexian’s eyes flashed blue and a moment later it went limp and fell in a heap of wrong angles.

The Phyrexians stopped and with their wings flapping furiously, they hovered and began raking with their claws. Koth’s eyes went red and cuffs of metal popped out along his forearms. A Phyrexian claw glanced off his arms and he shoved his hands into the thing’s barbed abdomen. His hands sunk into the metal and the geomancer pulled great hunks out. Oil fell out and the Phyrexian clawed at Koth, but the vulshok continued to yank bits out until he tore the creature out of the air and threw it down. The Phyrexian tried to rise but Koth fell on its chest with his knees and began banging its head savagely on the metal floor.

Another hovered above Koth, sweeping gashes in his back and hair. Koth turned and knocked the Phyrexian out of the air with a blazing fist.

Elspeth was beside herself. Venser had never seen such rage. She was screaming as she hacked at the nearest Phyrexian, leveling gashes out of its porcelain shell. The Phyrexian caught her sword, twisted, and wrenched it from Elspeth’s grasp. It cast the sword aside and came at the white warrior’s chest with its claws forward. Instead of falling back Elspeth lunged forward, catching the Phyrexian’s claws in her hands. They grappled a few feet off the ground until Koth seized the Phyrexian’s foot and dragged it down and began twisting its head on its neck. The head turned freely and seemed to have little effect on the Phyrexian, who continued to try to scrabble a path through Elspeth’s hands to the white warrior’s chest.

Koth began pulling up on the head. He heaved and twisted and eventually the head popped neatly off. The Phyrexian’s body went limp and fell to the ground. Koth held the head up and looked at it. He tapped the porcelain shell with the back of his knuckle. “It’s like egg shell,” he said.

Two of the other Phyrexians grabbed Koth’s arms and swept him high into the air. The geomancer laughed as he flew high. Elspeth, in one smooth movement, reached down for the knife in her boot, raised up, and threw. The bright blade glittered in the air before finding its target: the right eye of the Phyrexian holding Koth’s left arm.

Both the creatures stopped flying upward. The one with the knife sticking out of its eye turned and looked at its compatriot. They both cocked their heads as their wings flapped.

“You have something in your eye,” Koth said.

The Phyrexian turned its strange gaze on the geomancer. Its wing beats slowed before stopping altogether, causing it to plummet.

As the beast fell it did not release its hold on Koth’s arm … neither would the other Phyrexian, who strained against the combined weight, and then fell as well. Koth managed to turn as he fell so that the Phyrexians were between him and the metal floor. They hit first. By the time Koth hit, the Phyrexians were dead and offered enough resistance to break his fall. He bounced high off their bodies and came to rest near Venser, who helped him up.

Elspeth, meanwhile, had dispatched the two remaining Phyrexians with her blade, which she had retrieved.

Koth shook off Venser’s arm. “That was fun,” he said. “I’d like to try that again. Should we? Should we do that again?”

Venser shook his head. The geomancer was acting stranger and stranger. When was the last time any of them had eaten food or had more than a mouthful of water? They were each in their own way starting to show the strain of the trip. Venser knew that at some point he could, in likelihood, have to fight and restrain the much larger vulshok. Venser smiled. He’d fought larger and more powerful beings in his time. Koth would be easily dealt with.