Robert B.Wintermute - The Quest for Karn

The guide led them across the darkened room, which was veritably throbbing. The tubes and pipes were larger than Venser remembered seeing in other rooms, and he mentioned that to the guide, who shrugged. But to Venser it seemed that something was being pumped. The tubes, veins in actuality, expanded and contracted and there was a whooshing sound as well as a rhythmic booming, as though someone was striking a vast metal drum.

The guide approached what looked suspiciously like a real door, except its size was greater than what Venser would have expected in that deep place. Double a man’s height and as wide as two more, the door showed, in metal relief, the gears and cogs that made up a machine. Hundreds of different colored metals made up the different inlays and parts of the door, which Venser thought mere decorations. But the guide turned the huge brass knob, and cogs in the door began turning. Soon all the works that made up the door began to turn and move and the door opened and creaked inward. The guide stepped aside like a doorman at a ball and ushered them inside.

Why all the mechanisms? Venser wondered. If it is a lock then why did it open so easily at the guide’s touch?

He soon found out why. They followed the guide into the chamber, which like almost all the places in the depths of Mirrodin, was dimly lit. The room smelled strongly of metal falling to corrosion. The droning sound was softer there. The room and the sound reminded Venser of something, but he could not recall what.

A huge column stood at the far end of the room. Hundreds of tiny yellow mites sped around it in a circular orbit. Venser turned to ask the guide what the place was, but he found the guide staring stock-still at the top of the column. Venser waited a moment, but the guide didn’t move. Elspeth had noticed it too. She reached out and took the guide’s wrist. After a moment of feeling his wrist for the beat of his heart, Elspeth frowned. She checked once again that her finger was in the right place behind his thumb before pulling her hand away. The guide’s arm fell.

“I feel nothing,” she said.

Koth, who was walking with virtually no hunch by then, did not even look over. But the fleshling did. “He is a machine,” the fleshling said softly. She looked at each of their faces. “Surely you knew that.”

“A Phyrexian?” Koth said.

“No,” Venser said, waving his hand before the guide’s eyes. “He shows none of the tell-tale signs. “This is an extremely deftly made mechanism that fooled us all. Even me.”

“He seems to have brought us where he was supposed to,” Elspeth said.

“It’s dark everywhere,” Koth said, as if in explanation of the deception. “We were running the whole time.”

Elspeth gave Koth a dark glance. “Yes we were, weren’t we?”

But Koth either didn’t notice or did not acknowledge the jab. He walked over to the guide and brazenly knocked on his forehead. “Yep, he’s metal,” Koth said. He turned to Venser. “Well,” Koth said. “Where are we now? Is this the goal of all your superior leading?”

“You have nerve,” Elspeth said to Koth. “I’ll give you that.”

Koth gave Elspeth a wide smile. “I feel good for the first time in a day.”

“What is on the walls?” Venser said. He had not noticed the walls because they were shrouded in shadow, but he moved closer for a look and was shocked at what he saw.

Koth moved closer to the wall. “They are bones, of course,” Koth said. The bones were stuck to the wall in a certain pattern, four sideways then four vertically. The pattern covered all the walls, except where ribs and other bones were set in circles or triangles or other geometric patterns. Eventually the bones changed to machine shapes and more cogs.

Nobody said anything. There were enough bones for hundreds of humans to have used. And thick, black, rubbery tubes ran around the bones and through them. At some places the bones were obscured by curtains of smaller black tubes. The whole room pulsed.

Venser shook his head. “What is that sound?” Venser said, holding his head, which felt like it might explode. Was it starting? He thought desperately. The palsy’s toll?

“I hear it also,” Elspeth said.

“Feel it in my chest,” Koth said.

The guide jerked once, and then stood still.

“That sound is my children running to this place. That sound is all of their feet.”

The booming voice seemed to come from everywhere in the room at once. Venser stood up a bit straighter. “Karn?” Venser said.

The words seemed to hang in the air.

“I have not heard that name in eons,” the voice said.

“It has not been that long, old friend,” Venser said.

“Old friend? Do I know you? What is your name?”

“It is Venser of Urborg.”

“Venser of Urborg,” the voice repeated uncertainly.

“From not so long ago,” Venser said.

“Yes,” Karn said. “I sent somebody for you.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I sent a guide to lead you to me, but I cannot remember why.”

Venser looked to his side, where the guide was staring up at the top of the column with rapt fascination.

There was a terrific clatter as something began moving at the top of the column. Before their eyes, the column began coming apart. Venser stepped back. He noticed small, dark creatures that had been holding the sections of the column on their backs lowering the sections downward, hand to hand. Each of them was a duplicate of the small silver creature they had all followed down into the depths below the Vault of Whispers. Soon the last section of column was set vertically on the floor. A silver figure began climbing down a small ladder built into the metal of that section of column. The large figure was dwarfed beside the huge column it climbed down. It stopped midway down the ladder and launched into a series of violent convulsions before letting go of the rungs and falling the rest of the way to the metal floor.

Venser rushed over. The silver golem was lying on the floor inside the dent it had created by falling. Venser noticed the other, similar dents in the floor.

The golem’s eyes were silver slits and his wide jaw was thrust out. Karn reached out, took a handful of the metal floor as though it were dough, and pulled himself to his feet, where he stood looking down at Venser. Venser noticed with unease that the silver golem was smeared with black oil. What appeared to be droplets of the material dotted his silver body. Venser forced himself to smile. “We have been searching for you, old friend.”

Karn frowned down at Venser. “You are here to destroy me, I know this.”

Venser held up the palms of his hands. “That is not true.”

“You want to,” Karn shook his head once before continuing. “You want me to become a Phyrexian.”

“We want just the opposite,” Venser said.

“We want you to leave,” Koth cut in.

Venser ignored the vulshok. “We do not want you to leave,” Venser said. “We are here to heal the sickness you have.”

“I am not sick,” Karn said. “I should crush you for saying such.”

“Then leave, why don’t you,” Koth said. “Go away, you are not wanted here.”

Venser stepped closer to Karn. “Karn, it is I-your old student and friend.”

But Karn’s eyes popped open wide and his metallic nostrils flared. “You dare approach,” he shoved Venser, who flew back skittering across the floor and into a wall.

“Now you really are going to leave,” Koth said, “in pieces if possible.”

Koth grabbed one of Karn’s arms and yanked him off his feet. The silver golem looked bewildered as Koth took a step, pivoted, and threw Karn down and onto his back. He hopped onto Karn’s chest and his hand went white-hot in a blink. Koth moved to plunge his hand into Karn’s chest, but Elspeth held his arm back at the bicep. Koth struggled to free himself, but Elspeth had better purchase and was able to keep the arm back.