Robert B.Wintermute - The Quest for Karn

But traveling along the wall still took them near the blurred shapes. They became larger and larger until Venser recognized them for what they were. Elspeth’s hand tightened dramatically, and then let go of his and went, Venser assumed, to the grip of her sword.

Venser could see why.

The white blurs were actually strange Phyrexian angels. All white, with what appeared to be a porcelain exoskeleton, covered with chips. Pink tendons wormed from one section of porcelain to another, apparently holding them together. They had tattered metal wings that flapped, keeping them aloft. Their heads were all porcelain, with black round holes for eyes, and a thin black line for a mouth.

And between them they were throwing something round and shaggy. They were throwing the round shape as fast as they could, in a joyless game that Venser could not begin to understand. In that vast room they stood playing catch. Venser thought back to the conversation they were having earlier. Why was any of this here?

One of the angels missed its catch, and the ball fell to the ground with a dull thump. It rolled over and Venser recognized it for what it was. He looked away from the tortured line of a mouth and a flattened nose.

The angels noticed them at that moment, and shot up into the darkness. Venser could see their blurs, and a moment later an angel shot out of the dark and raked a claw down his body armor, knocking him over with the force of the blow. The pain was sharp as he rose, but didn’t feel critical enough to stay on the ground.

By the time he was up, Koth was grappling with one of the angels, who flapped its wings, pulling Koth with it into the air. Venser snapped his mana to his raised fingers, and furls of power radiated out and softened the metal of the angel’s wings, so they drooped and the angel fell. The impact gave Koth the opportunity to wrap his hands around the angel’s head and begin beating it against the floor.

Off to the side, Venser could see Elspeth and the second angel brawling. Surprisingly quick, the angel was able to dodge Elspeth’s attacks. The white warrior began to move her own mana to her sword for a thousand-cuts-in-one strike. But the angel put up its hand and Elspeth’s weapon dropped from her fingers.

She reached down for the sword, but the angel surged forward and palmed Elspeth’s head in its claw. It turned, raised Elspeth off the ground, and threw her away into the darkness, leaving her sword glittering on the ground.

The angel looked down at the sword and cocked its head to the side. Venser began running for the sword. He did not think about what would happen if the Phyrexian had the weapon, he just ran. By the time he reached the place, the angel had bent over the sword and was reaching down with its claw. Venser kicked the sword and it went skittering away.

He’d been struck hard plenty of times in his life. He was raised in Urborg, after all, and his childhood had been far from perfect: his father had broken his nose when he was ten, and that blow had knocked him out for almost an hour. He’d fought in the insurrection there and been wounded in the abdomen with a spear that went through him, knocked him way back, and pinned him to a tree. That one had hurt.

But the blow that the Phyrexian lashed out with was worse.

Elspeth saw it from the shadows. She was on her knees feeling for her blade and happened to look up. Her own head pounded where the Phyrexian angel’s metal claw had squeezed, but otherwise she was unhurt. She looked up in time to see the Phyrexian’s strike: Venser cartwheeled limp through the air like a tossed doll, his helmet spinning off to the side.

He landed with an unsettling thud. Elspeth turned back to her search. She moved to where she thought Venser had kicked the sword. By the time she found it, the angel was tearing the armor off Venser’s chest. It did not sense her approach, which was good because she was terrified to look it once more face-to-face. But still she could not strike an opponent’s back. She tapped it on the shoulder with the tip of her sword, but it did not turn. Having fulfilled the Etiquette of the Field with the tap, she wasted no time with enchantments, but simply swiped the creature’s head neatly off its shoulders, cutting the tops of its wings off in the process.

Yet it continued to move, to claw at Venser’s unmoving form. Without eyes its movements were gross and imprecise. Such imprecision alone was enough to make Elspeth kill it again. She swung again and severed it at the waist, cutting off the bottoms of its wings, and in that way it fell.

She shoved the angel’s torso off of Venser and kneeled over him. Off to the side his helmet sat with a tremendous dent the rough size of the angel’s claw. Elspeth turned back to Venser. He was breathing, she was glad to see. She felt his head and found a large lump above his ear. Koth and the fleshling appeared. Then the guide.

“What’s this now?” Koth said.

Elspeth ignored the knave. She put her hand on Venser’s forehead. Down her arm trickled the mana she had in reserve. It moved into her hand and settled into Venser’s forehead.

“This would not have happened if I were leading,” Koth mumbled. “We wouldn’t be down here with mutes and trackers, tearing angels apart.”

“I am not mute,” the fleshling said.

Elspeth concentrated more mana into Venser, trying to wake him from his slumber. Please , she thought.

Venser’s eyes popped open. They looked around wildly, and then settled on Elspeth’s face. He brought his hand to his face and wiped his hair out of his eyes. His hair is long now , she thought. Hadn’t it been short when Koth talked her into kidnapping him? How long have we been in the bowels of this place?

Venser sat up and winced. The random slashes from the where the angel tore off his chest armor bled freely.

“They are not deep,” Elspeth said, smiling. Something she had not done in days, maybe months. It felt strange to her face.

Koth scoffed and turned away. “We will all die down here,” he said. “All of us. I’m leaving. I should never have come.” He walked away into the darkness.

A strange look passed over Venser’s face, and he could feel his limbs begin to tremble. Then his cheek began to twitch. He turned and quickly, but with trembling fingers, fumbled through the pieces of metal and leather that had been his chest armor. In the torn underclothes he found the small white bottle Elspeth had seen him clutching before. The relief was obvious on his face.

“What is that really?” Elspeth said.

“This?” Venser said. “Nothing, medicine.”

Elspeth nodded. She’d never seen a medicine that glowed that color. Venser struggled to stand. With the scout’s help he finally did. Elspeth watched his twitching legs support one step, then another and then Venser was walking, looking pale and sweaty in the close air.

He noticed the pained look on her face. “I am as good as dead, you know,” he said.

“Really?”

“The sickness that is in me has no cure,” he said. “It will take me one day, and it could be soon.”

“Does the medicine help?”

“Not anymore. I lose some of myself with every teleport. For some reason I lost much more when the fleshling and I teleported into the flock of blinkmoths.”

Elspeth nodded, clearly uneasy with the direction the conversation had taken.

“Where is the fleshling?” Venser said, happy to direct the conversation away from the bottle.

Elspeth looked around. “She was just here.”

“So was Koth,” Venser said.

“She left with the vulshok,” the guide said from the shadows.

“Left?” Elspeth said.

The guide nodded.

Venser wondered if the man was perhaps a stuffed suit of skin, or he’d been kicked as a youth.