"02 - Nemesis - Paul B Thompson 1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lebaron Francis)

Clasping his burden, the agent plunged into the murky
water. His shroud and body paint took on the deep color of
night, and he was soon lost in darkness.
He knew it wasn't over. The elves were master hunters
and trackers. By daylight they would be after him in force,
and his escape portal was far enough away that day would be
well underway by the time he reached it.
Failure is not an option. You will complete your mission
whatever the cost.
Clasping the dead girl's waist, he swam faster.

* * * * *

Light dispels darkness-a fundamental principle, a law of
nature, on every known world. But on the plane of Phyrexia,
nature does not exist. On Phyrexia, light serves the dark,
it does not rule it.
The Fourth Level of this unnatural plane was the realm
of great furnaces. Here were forged many of the components
of Phyrexia's living machines. Around the clock (for there
is no night or day), gangs of slave gremlins fed the scrap
of redundant mechanisms into the mile-high furnaces. Molten
metal was drawn off, alloyed and tempered in greater
automatic rolling mills, and the resulting mixtures poured,
pressed, or stamped into parts for new Phyrexian machines.
If the gremlins faltered, they too were recycled, their
ranks constantly renewed with more expendable laborers.
Strange, then, was the mission of the gremlin Dabir. A
minor gremlin of trifling wits, he was best known for his
reliability and his utter subservience to his masters. His
immediate overseer, the vat priest Paax, had given him an
unusual task. Dabir stood for hours before a shimmering
portal to another plane, impatiently awaiting the arrival of
... what was it again he was waiting for?
"A sample," Paax said.
"What sample?"
The hulking Paax extended an oiled, acid-etched arm
until his black fingers were half an inch from Dabir's
beaked nose. A blue spark arced from the demon's hand, and
the gremlin collapsed on the greasy metal floor of the
Fourth Sphere in agony.
"Ask not the will of your betters," said Paax, his voice
punctuated by tinny clicks. He was bothered by a sticky
breathing regulator. "Only obey."
Dabir picked himself up, fingering his throbbing nose.
The smell of scorched flesh made even his feculent stomach
churn.
"Dabir always obey great, wise Paax," he whined.
Paax swiveled his slender undercarriage and started away
on four delicate, articulated legs. His rear mouth warned,