Greven grasped Dorian's soft arm in a painful grip. "The Kor you spoke to-was his name Furah?"
The chamberlain grunted in pain. "Dread Lord, you're hurting me."
"What was the Kor leader's name?"
"Furah sounds right, or Furdah-some such uncouth name."
Greven released Dorian with a shove and waded through the ranks of guards. In front of them were the last hostages, in this case over a hundred Kor in identical gray leather outfits. Though Greven had lived his entire life on Rath with both Dal and Kor as neighbors, he'd never seen an entire clan look so identical.
Startled, Greven called out, "Furah! Furah, I want to speak to you!"
In one motion, a hundred-plus Kor turned and looked back at Greven. They were all Furah. The warrior shook his head.
"Did you see that?" Greven asked a nearby soldier.
"See what, Dread Lord?"
"Nothing. Never mind."
The night of the Hub wind, Belbe made her first inspection of the flowstone factory. She did this alone, or rather, with six moggs to carry the new machinery sent with her from Phyrexia. The court advisors she quickly dismissed as useless sycophants. Greven and Dorian were busy rounding up thousands of hostages, and Ertai was nowhere to be found. This last fact annoyed her in some ill-defined way. Belbe found herself wanting Ertai's company, and not having what she wanted made her feel thwarted.
She soon forgot about Ertai, Greven, hostages, and everything else once she was deep in the flowstone works. Unlike those parts of the Citadel adapted for habitation, the factory was the most Phyrexian part of the Stronghold, and in Belbe's short life, Phyrexia meant home.
The structure of the factory was purely organismic-the adamantine frames of the building were like bones, and the cladding was applied like muscle and skin over the factory's skeleton. The entire fortress cantilevered out from the side of the Stronghold cone and was studded with flues, exhaust ports, and enormous conduits channeling liquid flowstone outside the crater. Over the years, residue from the great works accreted outside like scar tissue, blunting the lines of the severe architecture. By the time Belbe arrived, the Citadel was like a vast wasp's nest, growing organically and infested with thousands of poisonous inhabitants.
In the domed control center atop the factory, Belbe stood in rapt fascination of the great cauldron at the heart of the Citadel. Here lava, the raw material of flowstone, met the energy beam sizzling down from the Hub. Atoms disintegrated in the energy stream were whirled about at extreme velocities and reformed into programmable nanomachines-flowstone. It was all so wonderful, magnificent, and efficient.
Moggs lolled on the floor behind her, taking a breather while Belbe was lost in admiration of the factory. She recovered her sense of purpose and ordered them to bring up the Nano-Machine Conversion Accelerator. This was a globe eighteen inches in diameter, whose outer skin was encrusted with extruded tubing, wires, and output jacks. It was a self-aware device, capable of accepting verbal orders and implementing them throughout the factory. Phyrexian technicians had designed the Conversion Accelerator to optimize production of flowstone. As things stood, the factory ran at one speed all the time. Actual output varied, however, according to the amount of energy from the Hub, the quality and amount of lava, and the purity of the raw materials used. The Conversion Accelerator would harmonize these elements so as to produce more flow-stone when conditions warranted, and expend less energy when conditions were unfavorable. Overall production efficiency was expected to increase by almost twenty-seven percent.
The moggs maneuvered the heavy module into place. Belbe made the master power connections, and the Accelerator came to life.
"Implement final installation," she commanded.
"Understood." The device extended sharp-edged feelers to the control console. The tubes punched through the flowstone skin. Thin yellow oil wept from the incisions, but they quickly healed.
"Connection complete," said the Accelerator. "Input flow nominal. Output flow at 117 percent."
"Reduce output to 100 percent."
"That is not maximum," countered the machine.
"This is a test of your verbal command structure. Reduce to 100 percent."
The Accelerator vibrated slightly on its new mountings. Lights all over the factory dimmed, brightened, then settled down. The constant drone of the molecular whirlpool in the factory core declined half an octave.
"Output flow 100 percent," the Accelerator announced.
Belbe adjusted some of the external controls on the module. One of them was the voice command recognition circuit.
"Who am I?"
"Emissary from Central Control, unit number 338551732-"
"Stop, you are correct. Do you acknowledge my authority?"
"Command authority is authentic."
"Are there any default authorities?" she asked, curious.
"The Evincar of Rath."
"Any others?"
"No others."
"Very good. Seal command authority to my voice and the evincar's."
The unit clicked loudly and said, "Sealed."
One task done, another major task remained. The moggs had a second carton to deliver. In her belt pouch she had the control unit for a transplanar portal, the only portable device of its kind on Rath. The second carton in her baggage was a Portal Generator, a special device that could open a portal to any plane in the multiverse.
The portal, if opened, would need space. It also needed to be out of the way. Where to install it? Belbe ran through the complex floor plan of the Citadel in her head. There was a place… she called the moggs. Installation of the Accelerator had taken so long, the moggs had fallen asleep leaning on the second carton. She shouted at them, and they twitched awake.
She took the catwalk that circled the mighty central crucible. This close to the factory, static from the tremendous energy input could be felt through the walls of the furnace. The moggs didn't like it one bit and slunk along, scratching their tingling skin on every available protrusion. Belbe found the prickling sensation stimulating, not unlike her experience with Volrath's bath.
When she reached the place she'd chosen, she checked carefully to be sure she was not observed. Location of her portal equipment had to be secret. There were people in the palace who would kill for a chance to leave Rath, and Belbe had explicit orders from her masters not to allow anyone access to the portal.
An hour later, the portal device was deposited in a seldom-visited part of the Citadel. Belbe made a mental note to ask Greven to execute the moggs who helped her install the machinery as a standard security precaution.
Belbe had minimal need for sleep. The glistening oil in her veins kept her active long after ordinary beings craved rest. At daybreak, she descended to the lower airship dock to see what progress was being made on Predator. She found the hull had been reassembled and new deck fittings were being installed. All that remained after that was the tricky job of installing the engines and rigging.
She spotted Greven's Vec foreman and asked him where his master was.
"I haven't seen him since yesterday, Excellency," said the Vec. "He left with Lord Dorian, and I haven't seen either of them since."
"Thank you-"
"Excellency, when you find Lord Greven, ask him please to come back as soon as he can. We don't dare set the engines in place without him."
Belbe promised to pass the word to Greven. On her way out of the ship dock, a guard stopped her.
"If you're looking for Lord Greven, Excellency, you'll find him in the ruins beyond the City of Traitors."
She searched her implanted memory and found she didn't know this place. "Where is that?" Belbe asked.
The guard stepped to the edge of the docking platform and pointed to the floor of the crater.