LYNN ABBEY
                      "PLANESWALKER"
      
     (Magic: the Gathering. Artifact cycle. Book II.)
 
 
 
 
                        CHAPTER 1
 
    A man descended.
    His journey had begun in the clouds, riding the winds 
in search of a place remembered but no longer known. He'd 
found the place, as he'd found it before, by following the 
ancient glyphs an ancient folk had carved into the land, 
glyphs that had endured millennia of neglect and the 
cataclysmic finale of the Brothers' War five years ago.
    Much of Terisiare had vanished in the cataclysm, 
reduced to dust by fratricidal hatred. That dust still 
swirled overhead. Everyone coughed and harvests were 
sparse, but the sunsets and sunrises were magnificent 
luminous streaks of amber reaching across the sky, seeking 
escape from a ruined world.
    The brothers in whose names the war had been fought had 
been reduced to curses: By Urza's whim and Mishra's might, 
may you rot forever beneath the forests of sunken Argoth.
    Rumors said that Urza had caused the cataclysm when he 
used Lat Nam sorcery to fuel his final, most destructive, 
artifact. Others said that the cataclysm was Mishra's curse 
as he died with Urza's hands clasped around his throat. A 
few insisted that Urza had survived his crimes. Within a 
year of the cataclysm, all the rumors had merged in an 
increasingly common curse: If I met Urza on the road, I'd 
cripple him with my own two hands, as he and his brother 
crippled us, then I'd leave him for the rats and vultures 
as he left Mishra.
    Urza had survived. He'd heard the curse in its infinite 
variations. After nearly five years in self-chosen exile, 
the erstwhile Lord Protector of the Realm had spent another 
year walking amongst the folk of blasted Terisiare: the 
dregs of Yotia, the survivors of Argive, the tattered, the 
famished, the lame, the disheartened. No one had recognized 
him. Few had known him, even in the glory days. Urza had 
never been one to harangue his troops with rhetoric. He'd 
been an inventor, a scholar, an artificer such as the world 
had not seen since the Thran, and all he'd ever wanted was 
to study in peace. He'd had that peace once, near the 
beginning, and lost it, as he'd lost everything, to the 
man-the abomination-his brother had become.
    A handful of Urza's students had survived the 
cataclysm. They'd denounced their master, and Urza hadn't 
troubled them with a visit. Urza's wife, Kayla Bin-Kroog 
had survived, too. She now dwelt in austere solitude with 
her grandson, writing an epic she called The Antiquity 
Wars. Urza hadn't visited her either. Kayla alone might 
have recognized him, and he had no words for her. As for 
her grandson, Jarsyl, black-haired and stocky, charming, 
amiable and quick-witted . . . Urza had glimpsed the young 
man just once, and that had been one time too many. His 
descent continued.
    Urza had not wanted to return to this place where the 
war had, in a very real sense, begun nearly fifty years 
earlier. He wasn't ashamed of what he'd done to end the 
war. Filling the bowl-shaped sylex with his memories had 
been an act of desperation; the sylex itself had been a 
sudden, suspect gift, and until that day he'd neither 
studied nor practiced sorcery. He hadn't known what using 
the sylex would do, but the war had had to be stopped. The 
thing his brother had become had to be stopped, else 
Terisiare's fate would have been worse. Much worse.
    No, Urza would not apologize, but he was not pleased by 
his own survival.
    Urza should have died when the sylex emptied. He 
suspected that he had died, but the powerstones over which 
he and his brother had contended had preserved him. When 
Urza had awakened, the two Thran jewels had become his 
eyes. All Thran devices had been powered by such faceted 
stones, but his Might-stone and Mishra's Weakstone had been 
as different from ordinary powerstones as a candle to the 
sun.
    Once rejoined within Urza's skull, the Thran jewels had 
restored him to his prime. He had no need for food or rest, 
though he continued to sleep because a man needed dreams 
even when he no longer needed rest. And his new eyes gave 
him vision that reached around dark corners into countless 
other worlds.
    Urza believed that in time the battered realms of 
Terisiare would recover, even thrive, but he had not wished 
to watch that excruciatingly slow process, and so he'd 
walked away. For five years after the sylex-engendered 
cataclysm, Urza had explored the 'round-the-corner worlds 
his faceted eyes revealed.
    In one such world he'd met another traveler, a woman 
named Meshuvel who'd confirmed what he'd already guessed: 
He'd lost his mortality the day he destroyed Mishra. The 
blast had slain him, and the Thran powerstones had brought 
him back to life because he was-had always been-a 
planeswalker, like Meshuvel herself.
    Meshuvel explained to Urza that the worlds he'd visited 
were merely a handful of the infinite planes of the 
multiverse, any of which could be explored and exploited by 
an immortal planeswalker. She taught Urza to change his 
shape at will and to comprehend thought without the 
inconvenience of language or translation. But even among 
planeswalkers Urza was unique. For all her knowledge, 
Meshuvel couldn't see the multiverse as Urza saw it. Her 
eyes were an ordinary brown, and she'd never heard of the 
Thran. Meshuvel could tell Urza nothing about his eyes, 
except that she feared them; and feared them so much that 
she tried to snare him in a time pit. When that failed, she 
fled the plane where they'd been living.
    Urza had thought about pursuing Meshuvel, more from 
curiosity than vengeance, but the plane she'd called 
Dominaria-the plane where he'd been born, the plane he'd 
nearly destroyed- kept its claws in his mind. Five years 
after the cataclysm, Dominaria had pulled him home.
    Urza's descent ended on a wind-eroded plateau. Clouds 
thickened, turned gray. Cold wind, sharp with ice and dust, 
plastered long strands of ash-blond hair across Urza's 
eyes. Winter had come earlier than Urza had expected, 
another unwelcome gift from the sylex. A few more days and 
the glyphs would have been buried until spring.
    Four millennia ago, the Thran had transformed the 
plateau into a fortress, an isolated stronghold wherein 
they'd made their final stand. Presumably, it once had a 
name; perhaps the glyphs proclaimed it still, but no one 
had cracked that enigmatic code, and no one cracked it that 
afternoon. Urza's jeweled eyes gave him no insight into 
their makers' language. Fifty years ago, in his natural 
youth, Urza and his brother had named the great cavern 
within the plateau Koilos, and Koilos it remained.
    Koilos had been ruins then. Now the ruins were 
themselves ruined, but not merely by the sylex. The 
brothers and their war had wrought this damage, plundering 
the hollow plateau for Thran secrets, Thran powerstones.
    In truth, Urza had expected worse. Mishra had held this 
part of Terisiare for most of the war, and it it pleased 
Urza to believe that his brother's allies had been more 
destructive than his own allies had been. In a dusty corner 
of his heart, Urza knew that had he been able to ravage 
Koilos, even the shadows would have been stripped from the 
stones, but Mishra's minions had piled their rubble neatly, 
almost reverently. Their shredded tents still flapped in 
the rising wind. Looking closer, Urza realized they'd left 
suddenly and without their belongings, summoned, perhaps, 
to Argoth, as Urza had summoned his followers for that 
final battle five years earlier.
    Urza paused on the carefully excavated path. He closed 
his eyes and shuddered as memories flooded his mind.
    He and Mishra had fought from the beginning in a sunlit 
Argive nursery. How could they not, when he was the eldest 
by less than a year and Mishra was the brother everyone 
liked better?
    Yet they'd been inseparable, so keenly aware of their 
differences that they'd come to rely on the other's 
strengths. Urza never learned the arts of friendship or 
affection because he'd had Mishra between him and the rest 
of the world.
    And Mishra? What had he given Mishra? What had Mishra 
ever truly needed from him?
    "How long?" Urza asked the wind in a whisper that was 
both rage and pain. "When did you first turn away from me?"
    Urza reopened his eyes and resumed his trek. He left no 
footprints in the dust and snow. Nothing distracted him. 
The desiccated corpse propped against one tent pole wasn't 
worth a second glance, despite the metal plates rusting on 
its brow or the brass pincers replacing its left arm. Urza 
had seen what his brother had become; it wasn't surprising 
to him that Mishra's disciples were similarly grotesque.
    His faceted eyes peered into darkness, seeing nothing.
    Now, that was a surprise, and a disappointment. Urza 
had expected insight the way a child expects a present on 
New Year's morning. Disappoint Mishra and you'd have gotten 
a summer tantrum: loud, violent and quickly passed. 
Disappoint Urza and Urza got cold and quiet, like ice, 
until he'd thawed through the problem.
    After four thousand years had they plundered the last 
Thran powerstone? Exposed the last artifact? Was there 
nothing left for his eyes to see?
    A dull blue glint caught Urza's attention. He wrenched 
a palm-sized chunk of metal free from the rocks and rubble. 
Immediately it moved in his hand, curving back on itself. 
It was Thran, of course. An artificer of Urza's skill 
didn't need jeweled eyes to recognize that ancient 
craftsmanship. Only the Thran had known how to forge a sort 
of sentience between motes of metal.
    But Urza saw the blue-gray metal more clearly than ever 
before. With time, the right tools, the right reagents, and 
a bit of luck, he might be able to decipher its secrets. 
Then, acting without deliberate thought, as he very rarely 
did, Urza drove his right thumbnail into the harder-than-
steel surface. He thought of a groove, a very specific 
groove that matched his nail. When he lifted his thumb, the 
groove was in the metal and remained as he slowly counted 
to ten.
    "I see it. Yes, I see it. So simple, once it can be 
seen."
    Urza thought of Mishra, spoke to Mishra. No one else, 
not even his master-student, Tawnos, could have grasped the 
shifting symmetries his thoughts had imposed on the ancient 
metal.
    "As if it had been your thumb," Urza conceded to the 
wind. Impulse, like friendship, had been Mishra's gift.
    Urza could almost see him standing there, brash and 
brilliant and not a day over eighteen. An ice crystal died 
in Urza's lashes. He blinked and saw Mishra's face, slashed 
and tattered, hanging by flesh threads in the cogs of a 
glistening engine.
    "Phyrexia!" he swore and hurled the shard into the 
storm.
    It bounced twice, ringing like a bell, then vanished.
    "Phyrexia!"
    He'd learned that word five years ago, the very day of 
the cataclysm, when Tawnos had brought him the sylex. 
Tawnos had gotten the bowl from Ashnod and, for that reason 
alone, Urza would have cast it aside. But he'd fought 
Mishra once already that fateful day. For the first time, 
Urza had poured himself into his stone, the Mightstone, and 
if his brother had been a man, his brother would have died. 
But Mishra had no longer been a man; he hadn't died, and 
Urza needed whatever help fate offered.
    In those chaotic moments, as their massed war engines 
turned on one another, there'd been no time to ask 
questions or consider implications. Urza believed Mishra 
had transformed himself into a living artifact, and that 
abominable act had justified the sylex. It was after, when 
there was no one left to ask, that the questions had 
surfaced.
    Tawnos had mentioned a demon-a creature from Phyrexia- 
that had ambushed him and Ashnod. Never mind the 
circumstances that had brought Urza's only friend and his 
brother's treacherous lieutenant together on the Argoth 
battlefield. Tawnos and Ashnod had been lovers once, and 
love, other than an abstract devotion to inquiry or 
knowledge, meant very little to Urza. Ask instead, what was 
a Phyrexian doing in Argoth? Why had it usurped all the 
artifacts, his and Mishra's? Then, ask a final question, 
what had he or Mishra to do with Phyrexia that its demon 
had become their common enemy?
    Some exotic force-some Phyrexian force-had conspired 
against them. Wandering, utterly alone across the ruins of 
Terisiare, there had seemed no other explanation.
    In the end, in the forests of Argoth, only the sylex 
had prevented a Phyrexian victory.
    Within a year of the cataclysm, Urza had tracked the 
sylex back through Ashnod's hands to a woman named Loran, 
whom he'd met in his youth. Though Loran had studied the 
Thran with him and Mishra under the tutelage of the 
archeologist Tocasia, she'd turned away from artifice and 
become a scholar in the ivory towers of Teresia City, a 
witness of the land-based power the sylex had unleashed.
    The residents of Terisia City had sacrificed half their 
number to keep the bowl out of his or Mishra's hands. Half 
hadn't been enough. Loran had lost the sylex and the use of 
her right arm to Ashnod's infamous inquiries, but the rest 
of her had survived. Urza had approached Loran warily, 
disguised as a woman who'd lost her husband and both her 
sons in what he bitterly described as "the brothers' cursed 
folly."
    Loran was a competent sage and a better person than 
Urza hoped to be, but she was no match for his jeweled 
eyes. As she'd heated water on a charcoal brazier, he'd 
stolen her memories.
    The sylex, of course, was gone, consumed by the forces 
it had released, and Loran's memory of it was imperfect. 
That was Ashnod's handiwork. The torturer had taken no 
chances with her many victims. Loran recalled a copper bowl 
incised with Thran glyphs Urza had forgotten until he saw 
them again in Loran's memory. Some of the glyphs were sharp 
enough that he'd recognize them if he saw them again, but 
most were blurred.
    He could have sharpened those memories, his eyes had 
that power, but Urza knew better than to make the 
suggestion. Loran would sooner die than help him, so they 
drank tea, watched a brilliant sunset, then went their 
separate ways.
    Urza had learned enough. The Thran, the vanished race 
who'd inspired his every artifact, had made the sylex, and 
the sylex had
    saved Dominaria from Phyrexia. Although mysteries 
remained, there was symmetry, and Urza had hoped that 
symmetry would be enough to halt his dreams. He'd resumed 
his planeswalking. It had taken five years-Urza was nothing 
if not a determined, even stubborn, man-before he'd 
admitted to himself that his hopes were futile. A year ago, 
he'd returned to Dominaria, to Argoth itself, which he'd 
avoided since the war ended. He'd found the ruined hilltop 
where he'd unleashed the land's fury and pain. He'd found 
Tawnos's coffin.
    Tawnos had spent five years sealed in stasis within the 
coffin. For him, it was as if the war hadn't yet ended and 
the cataclysm hadn't yet happened. The crisp images on the 
surface of Tawnos's awakened mind had been battlefield 
chaos, Ashnod's lurid hair, and the demon from Phyrexia.
    "... if this thing is here ..." Tawnos had recalled his 
erstwhile lover's, onetime torturer's words.
    Ashnod's statement had implied, at least to Tawnos and 
from him to Urza, that she'd recognized the demon: a man-
tall construction of strutted metal and writhing, segmented 
wires. Urza recognized it too-or parts of it. He'd seen 
similar wires uncoiled from his brother's flensed body, 
attaching Mishra to a dragon engine.
    "This one is mine. . . ." More of Ashnod's sultry words 
lying fresh in Tawnos's mind.
    Urza's only friend had wanted to argue with Ashnod, to 
die beside her. She wouldn't grant him that dubious honor. 
Instead she'd given him the sylex.
    Tawnos's memories had clouded quickly as he'd absorbed 
the vastly changed landscape. While Tawnos had sorted his 
thoughts, Urza had looked westward, to the battlefield, now 
replaced by ocean.
    Ashnod, as treacherous as she'd been beautiful, had 
betrayed everyone who fell into her power. Tawnos's back 
still bore the scars. Mishra had judged her so unreliable 
that he'd banished her, only to let her back for that last 
battle.
    Or had he?
    Had Mishra known Ashnod carried the sylex? Had the 
traitor himself been betrayed? Which was the puppet and 
which the
    master? Why had the demon stalked Ashnod across the 
battlefield? What was her connection to Phyrexia?
    Urza had wrestled with such questions until Tawnos had 
asked his own. "Your brother?"
    "Dead," Urza had replied as his questions converged on 
a single answer. "Long before I found him."
    The words had satisfied Tawnos, who began at once to 
talk of other things, of rebuilding the land and restoring 
its vitality. Tawnos-dear friend Tawnos-had always been an 
optimist. Urza left him standing by the coffin, certain 
that they'd never meet again.
    For Urza, the realization that he hadn't slain Mishra 
with the sylex had given him a sense of peace that had 
lasted almost a month, until a new, stronger wave of guilt 
had engulfed it. He was the elder brother, charged from 
birth with his younger sibling's care.
    He'd failed.
    When Mishra had need of an elder brother's help, that 
elder brother had been elsewhere. He'd failed Mishra and 
all of Dominaria. His brother had died alone, betrayed by 
Ashnod, transformed by a Phyrexian demon into a hideous 
amalgam of flesh and artifice.
    Urza had returned to Argoth and Tawnos as the snows had 
begun, almost exactly one year ago. He'd denied himself 
sleep or shelter, kneeling in the snow, waiting for Mishra, 
or death; it hadn't mattered which. But Meshuvel had been 
correct: Urza had transcended death, and he'd found, to his 
enduring dismay, that he lacked the will for suicide. A 
late spring had freed him from his icy prison. He'd stood 
up, no weaker than he'd been when he'd knelt down.
    The left side of his face had been raw where bitter 
tears had leaked from the Weakstone, but it had healed 
quickly, within a few moments. He'd walked away with no 
marks from his season-long penance.
    In his youth, when his wife's realm of Yotia had still 
sparkled in the sun, a man named Rusko had told Urza that a 
man had many souls throughout his life, and that after 
death each soul was judged according to its deeds. Urza had 
outlived his souls. The sylex had blasted him out of 
judgment's hands. No penance would ever dull the ache of 
failure.
    All that remained was vengeance.
    Urza had spent the spring and summer assuring himself 
that Ashnod had not survived. He'd skipped through the 
planes, returning after each unreal stride to Dominaria in 
search of a woman who was too proud to change her 
appearance or her ways. When fall had arrived without a 
trace of her, Urza had turned his attention to Koilos, 
where he and Mishra had come to manhood pursuing relics of 
the Thran.
    His immortal memory, he'd discovered, was fallible. 
Planes-walking couldn't easily take him to a place he 
didn't quite remember. In the end, searching for places 
that had faded from memory, he'd been reduced to surveying 
vast tracts of barren land from the air, as he and his 
brother had surveyed in their youth.
    He'd have given his eyes and immortality to have back 
just one of those days he and Mishra had spent in Tocasia's 
camp.
    Sleety wind shot up his sleeves. Urza wasn't immune to 
the discomforts of cold, merely to their effects. He 
thought of a felted cloak; it spread downward from his 
shoulders, thickening as he added a fur lining, then 
gloves, fleece-lined boots and a soft-brimmed hat that 
didn't move in the wind. He continued along the path 
Mishra's workers had left. As before, and despite his new 
boots, Urza left no footprints.
    With each stride, pain ratcheted through his skull. 
This close to the place where they'd been joined for 
millennia, his jeweled eyes recalled another purpose. 
Hoping to dull the pain, Urza turned his back to the 
cavern. His throbbing eyes saw the snow-etched ruins as 
shadows painted on gauzy cloth; nothing like the too-real 
visions he'd suffered the day he'd acquired the Might-
stone. Then, the shadows expanded and began to move. They 
were different from his earlier visions, but not entirely. 
Where before he had watched white-robed men constructing 
black-metal spiders, now he saw a battlefield swarming with 
artifacts, another Argoth but without the demonic disorder.
    At first Urza couldn't distinguish the two forces, as 
an observer might not have been able to distinguish his 
army from Mishra's. But as he looked, the lines of battle 
became clear. One side had its back against the cavern and 
was fighting for the freedom of the plains beyond the 
hollow plateau. The other formed an arc as it emerged from 
the narrow defile that was the only way to those plains, 
meaning to crush its enemy against the cliffs. Blinding 
flashes and plumes of dense smoke erupted everywhere, 
testaments to the desperation with which both sides fought.
    Urza strained his eyes. One force had to be the Thran, 
but which? And what power opposed them?
    During the moments that Urza pondered, the defile force 
scored a victory. A swarm of their smaller artifacts 
stormed the behemoth that anchored the enemy's center. It 
went down in a whirlwind of flame that drove both forces 
back. The defile force regrouped quicker and took a bite 
from the cavern force's precious ground. A mid-guard cadre 
from the defile brought rays of white light to bear on the 
behemoth's smoldering hulk. Soot rained and the hulk glowed 
red.
    Caught up in the vision, Urza began to count, "One . . 
. two . . ."
    The hulk's flanks burst, and all-too-familiar segmented 
wires uncoiled. Tipped with scythes, the wires slashed 
through the defile cadre, winnowing it by half, but too 
late. The Thran pow-erstones completed the destruction of 
the Phyrexian behemoth.
    Millennia after the battle's dust had settled, Urza 
clenched his jaws together in a grimly satisfied smile. Ebb 
and flow were obvious, now that he'd identified the Thran 
and their goal: to drive the Phyrexians into the cavern 
where, presumably, they could be annihilated.
    It was, as the Argoth battle between him and Mishra had 
been, a final battle. Retreat was not an option for the 
Phyrexians, and the Thran offered no quarter. Urza lost 
interest in his own time as the shadow war continued. The 
Phyrexians assembled behind their last behemoth, charged 
the Thran line on its right flank and very nearly broke 
through. But the Thran held nothing back. As ants might 
swarm a fallen bit of fruit, they converged upon the 
Phyrexian bulge.
    Again, it became impossible to distinguish one force 
from the other.
    Urza counted to one hundred and ten, by which time 
there was no movement within the shadows. When he reached 
one-hundred and twelve, the shadows brightened to desert-
noon brilliance. Reflexively, Urza shielded his eyes. When 
he lowered his hand, there was only snow. The pain in his 
skull was gone. He entered the cavern thoroughly sobered by 
what he had seen.
    His eyes had recorded the final battle between the 
Thran and the Phyrexians. It seemed reasonable to assume 
that recording Phyrexian defeats was part of their 
function. From that assumption, it was easy to conclude 
that the Thran had intended the recording stones as a 
warning to all those who came after.
    Urza had had a vision when he first touched what became 
his Mightstone. He recalled it as he entered the cavern. 
Despite his best efforts, the images were dreamlike yet 
they strengthened his newborn conviction: The Thran had 
vanished because they'd sacrificed themselves to defeat the 
Phyrexians.
    Within the cavern, Urza gazed up at the rough ceiling. 
"We didn't know," he explained to any lingering Thran 
ghosts. "We didn't know your language. . . . We didn't 
guess what we couldn't understand."
    He knew now. The artifact in which they'd found the 
single stone-the artifact that he and Mishra had destroyed 
utterly- had been the Thran legacy to Dominaria and the 
means through which they'd locked their enemy out of 
Dominaria.
    "We didn't know. . .."
    When the stone had split into its opposing parts, the 
lock had been sprung and the Phyrexians had returned. The 
enemy had known better than to approach him, the bearer of 
the Mightstone, but they had-they must have-suborned, 
corrupted, and destroyed Mishra, who'd had only the 
Weakstone for protection. The stones were not, after all, 
truly equal. Might was naturally dominant over weakness, as 
Urza, the elder brother, should have been dominant over the 
younger.
    But blinded by an elder brother's prejudice and-admit 
it!- jealousy, Urza had done nothing.
    No, he'd done worse than nothing. He'd blamed Mishra, 
gone to war against Mishra, and undone the Thran sacrifice.
    Guilt was a throbbing presence within Urza's skull. He 
closed his eyes and clapped his hands over his ears, but 
that only made everything worse.
    Why hadn't he and Mishra talked?
    Through their childhood and youth, he and Mishra had 
fought constantly and bitterly before repairing the damage 
with conversation. Then, after the stones had entered into 
their lives, they hadn't even tried.
    Then insight and memory came to Urza. There had been 
one time, about forty-five years ago in what could be 
called the war's morning hours. They'd come together on the 
banks of the river Kor, where it tumbled out of the Kher 
mountains. The Yotian warlord, his wife's father, had come 
to parley with the qadir of the Fallaji. Urza hadn't seen 
or heard from his brother for years. He'd believed that 
Mishra was dead, and had been stunned to see him advising 
the qadir.
    He, Urza-gods and ghosts take note-had suggested that 
they should talk, and Mishra had agreed. As Urza recalled 
the conversation, Mishra had been reluctant, but that was 
his brother's style, petulant and sulky whenever his 
confidence was shaken, as surely it would have been shaken 
with the Weakstone burden slung around his neck, and the 
Phyrexians eating at his conscience.
    Surely Mishra would have confessed everything, if the 
warlord hadn't taken it into his head to assassinate the 
qadir as the parley began.
    Urza recalled the carnage, the look on Mishra's face.
    Back in Koilos, in the first snows of the fifth winter 
after the cataclysm, Urza staggered and eased himself to 
the ground. For a few moments the guilt was gone, replaced 
by a cold fury that reached across time to the warlord's 
neck. It was YOUR fault.' Your fault! But the warlord 
shrugged him away. He was your brother, not mine.
    If the Phyrexians had not taken Mishra's soul before 
that day on the banks of the Kor, they had surely had no 
difficulty afterward.
    The blame, then, was Urza's, and there was nothing he 
could do to ease his conscience, except, as always, in 
vengeance against the Phyrexians. For once, Urza was in the 
right place. Koilos was where the Thran had stopped the 
Phyrexians once and where his own ignorance had given the 
enemy a second chance. If there was a way to Phyrexia, it 
was somewhere within Koilos.
    Urza left tracks in the dust as he searched for a sign.
    The sun had set. Koilos was tomb dark. Urza's eyes made 
their own light, revealing a path, less dusty than any 
other, that led deep into the cavern's heart. He found a 
chamber ringed with burnt-out powerstones. Two sooty lines 
were etched on the sandstone floor. Marks that might have 
been Thran glyphs showed faintly between the lines. Urza 
used his eyes to scour the spot, but the glyphs-if glyphs 
they were-remained illegible.
    He cursed and knelt before the lines. This was the 
place, it had to be the very place, where the Phyrexians 
had entered Domi-naria. There could be no doubt. Looking 
straight ahead, past the lines and the exhausted 
powerstones, there was a crystal reliquary atop a waist-
high pyramid. The reliquary was broken and empty, but the 
pyramid presented an exquisitely painted scene to Urza's 
glowing eyes: the demon he had seen in Tawnos's memory.
    Circling the pyramid, Urza saw two other demonic 
portraits and a picture of the chamber itself with a black 
disk rising between the etched lines. He tore the chamber 
apart, looking for the disk-either its substance or the 
switch that awakened it- and not for the first time in his 
life, Urza failed.
    When Urza walked among the multiverse of planes, he 
began his journey wherever he happened to be and ended it 
with an act of will or memory. He realized that the 
Phyrexians had used another way, but it lay beyond his 
comprehension, as did the plane from which they'd sprung. 
The multiverse was vast beyond measure and filled with 
uncountable planes. With no trail or memory to guide him, 
Urza was a sailor on a becalmed sea, beneath a clouded sky. 
He had no notion which way to turn.
    "I am immortal. I will wander the planes until I find 
their home, however long and hard the journey, and I will 
destroy them as they destroyed my brother."
 
                        CHAPTER 2
 
    "Nearly five years after Argoth was destroyed and the 
war between the brothers had ended, Tawnos came to my 
courtyard. He told me much that I had never known, much 
that I have written here. He told me that my husband was 
dead and that he'd died with my name on his lips. It is a 
pretty thought, and I would like to believe it, but I am 
not certain that Urza died and, if he did, he would have 
died calling to Mishra, not me."
    Xantcha lightly brushed her fingertips over brittle 
vellum before closing her tooled-leather cover of The 
Antiquity Wars. It was the oldest among her copies of Kayla 
Bin-Kroog's epic history, and the scribe who'd copied and 
translated it nearly twelve hundred years earlier claimed 
he'd had Kayla's original manuscript in front of him. 
Xantcha had her doubts, if not about the scribe's honesty, 
then about his gullibility.
    Not that either mattered. For a tale that had no heroes 
and a very bitter ending, The Antiquity Wars had been very 
carefully preserved for nearly three and a half millennia. 
It was as if everyone still heeded the warning in Kayla's 
opening lines: "Let this, the testament of Kayla Bin-Kroog, 
the last of Yotia, serve as memory, so that our mistakes 
will never be repeated."
    Xantcha stared beyond the table. On a good night, the 
window would have been open and she could have lost her 
thoughts in the stars twinkling above the isolated cottage, 
but Dominaria hadn't completely recovered from the 
unnatural ice age had that followed the Brothers' War. 
Clear nights were rare on Xantcha's side of the Ohran 
Ridge, where the cottage was tucked into a crease of land, 
where the grass ended and the naked mountains began. Mostly 
the weather was cool or cold, damp or wet, or something in 
between. Tonight, gusty winds were propelling needle-sharp 
sleet against the shutters.
    The room had cooled while she read. Her breath was mist 
and, with a shivering sigh, Xantcha made her way to the 
peat bin. There were no trees near the cottage. Her meager 
garden sprouted a new crop of stones every spring, and the 
crumbling clods that remained after she'd picked out the 
stones were better suited for the brazier than for 
nurturing grains and vegetables. She'd had to scrounge 
distant forests for her table and shutters. Even now that 
the cottage was finished, she spent much of her time 
scrounging the remains of Terisiare for food and rumors.
    Shredding a double handful of peat into the brazier 
beneath the table, Xantcha found, as she often did, the 
squishy remains of an acorn: a reminder of just how much 
Urza and his brother had changed their world with their 
war. When whole, the acorn would have been as large as her 
fist, and the tree that had dropped it would have had a 
trunk as broad as the cottage was wide. She crumbed the 
acorn with the rest and stirred the coals until palpable 
heat radiated from the iron bucket.
    Xantcha forgot the table and hit her head hard as she 
stood. She sat a moment, rubbing her scalp and muttering 
curses, until she remembered the candlestick. With a louder 
curse, she scrabbled to her feet. Waste not, want not, it 
hadn't toppled. Her book was safe.
    She returned to her stool and opened to a random page. 
Kayla's portrait stared back at her: dusky, sloe-eyed, and 
seductive. Xantcha owned four illustrated copies of The 
Antiquity Wars. Each one depicted Kayla differently. Her 
favorite showed Una's wife as a tall, graceful and 
voluptuous woman with long blond hair, but
    Xantcha knew none of the portraits were accurate. 
Staring at the shutters, she tried to imagine the face of 
the woman who had known, and perhaps loved, Urza the 
Artificer while he was a mortal man.
    One thing was certain, Xantcha didn't resemble Kayla 
Bin-Kroog. There were no extravagant curves in Xantcha's 
candlelit silhouette. She was short, not tall, and her hair 
was a very drab brown, which she cropped raggedly around a 
face that was more angular than attractive. Xantcha could, 
and usually did, pass herself off as a slight youth 
awaiting his full growth and first beard. Still, Xantcha 
thought, she and Kayla would have been friends. Life had 
forced many of the same hard lessons down their throats.
    Kayla, however, wasn't the epic character who intrigued 
Xantcha most. That honor went to Urza's brother, Mishra. 
Three of Xantcha's illustrated volumes depicted Mishra as a 
whip-lean man with hard eyes. The fourth portrayed him as 
soft and lazy, like an overfed cat. Neither type matched 
Kayla's word picture. To Kayla, Mishra had been tall and 
powerful, with straight black hair worn wild and full. 
Mishra's smile, his sister-by-law had written, was warm and 
bright as the sun on Midsummer's day, and his eyes sparkled 
with wit-when they weren't flashing full of suspicion.
    Not all The Antiquity Wars in Xantcha's collection 
included Kayla's almost indiscreet portrait of her 
husband's brother. Some scribes had openly seized an 
opportunity to take a moral stance, not only against 
Mishra, but other men of more recent vintage- as if a 
princess of ancient Yotia could have foreseen the vices of 
the Samisar of Evean or Ninkin the Bold! One scribe, 
writing in the year 2657 admitted that she'd omitted the 
Mishra section entirely, because it was inconsistent with 
Kayla's loyalty to her husband and, therefore, a likely 
fraud-and absolutely inappropriate for the education of the 
young prince, who was expected to learn his statecraft from 
her copy of the epic.
    Xantcha wondered if that priggish scribe had seen the 
picture on her table. The Kayla Bin-Kroog of Xantcha's 
oldest copy wore a veil, three pearl ropes, and very little 
else. Few men could have resisted her allure. One of them 
had been her husband. Beyond doubt, Urza had neglected his 
wife. No woman had ever intrigued
    Urza half as much as his artifacts. How many evenings 
might Kayla have gone to bed railing at the fates who'd 
sent the chaste Urza to her father's palace, rather than 
his charming brother?
    Urza had never questioned his wife's fidelity. At 
least, Xantcha had never heard him raise that question. 
Then again, the man who lived and worked on the other side 
of the wall at Xantcha's back had never mentioned his son 
or grandson, either.
    With a sigh and a yawn, Xantcha stowed the book in a 
chest that had no lock. They didn't need locks in the 
absolute middle of nowhere. Urza had the power to protect 
them from anything. The heavy lid served only to discourage 
the mice that would otherwise have devoured the vellum.
    "Xantcha!" Urza's voice came through the wall; as she 
contemplated the precious library she'd accumulated over 
the last two and a half centuries
    She leapt instantly to her feet. The lid fell with a 
bang. Urza had shut himself in his workroom while she'd 
been off scrounging, and she'd known better than to 
interrupt him when she'd returned. Sixteen days had passed 
since she'd heard his voice.
    Their cottage had two rooms: hers, which had begun as a 
shed around an outdoor bread oven, and Urza's, which 
consumed everything under the original roof, a dugout 
cellar and a storage alcove-Urza traveled light but settled 
deep. Each room had a door to a common porch whose thatched 
roof provided some protection from the weather.
    Wind-driven sleet pelted her as Xantcha darted down the 
porch. She shoved the door shut behind her, then, when Urza 
hadn't noticed the sound or draft, took his measure before 
approaching him.
    Urza the great artificer sat at a high table on a stool 
identical to her own. By candlelight, Xantcha saw that he 
was dressed in the same tattered blue tunic he'd been 
wearing when she'd last seen him. His ash-blond hair spewed 
from the thong meant to confine it at the nape of his neck. 
It wasn't dirty-not the way her hair would have gotten foul 
if it went that long between washings. Urza didn't sweat or 
purge himself in any of the usual ways. He didn't breathe 
when he was rapt in his studies and never needed to eat, 
though he spoke in the mortal way and ate heartily 
sometimes, if she'd cooked something that appealed to him. 
He drank water, never caring where it came from or how long 
it had stood stagnant, but the slops bucket beside his door 
never needed emptying. Urza didn't get tired either, which 
was a more serious problem because he remained man enough 
to need sleep and dreams for the purging of his thoughts.
    There were times when Xantcha believed that all Urza's 
thoughts needed purging; this was one of them.
    Mountains rose from Urza's table. All too familiar 
mountains shaped from clay and crockery. Quicksilver 
streams overflowed the corners. As melting sleet trickled 
down her spine, Xantcha wondered if she could retreat and 
pretend she hadn't heard. She judged that she could have, 
but didn't.
    "I've come," she announced in the language only she and 
Urza spoke, rooted in ancient Argivian with a leavening of 
Yotian and tidbits from a thousand other worlds.
    Urza spun quickly on the stool, too quickly for her 
eyes to follow his movement. Indeed, he hadn't moved, he'd 
reshaped himself. It was never a good sign when Urza forgot 
his body. Meeting his eyes confirmed Xantcha's suspicions. 
They glowed with their own facet-rainbow light.
    "You summoned me?"
    He blinked and his eyes turned mortal, dark irises 
within white sclera. But that was the illusion; the other 
was real.
    "Yes, yes! Come see, Xantcha. Look at what has been 
revealed."
    She'd sooner have entered the ninth sphere of Phyrexia. 
Well, perhaps not the ninth sphere, but the seventh, 
certainly.
    "Come. Come! It's not like the last time."
    At least he remembered the last time when the mountains 
had exploded.
    Xantcha crossed the narrows of the oblong room until 
she stood at arm's length from the table. Contrary to his 
assurance, it was like the last time, exactly like the last 
time and the time before that. He'd recreated the plain of 
the river Kor below the Kher Ridge and covered the plain 
with gnats. She kept her distance.
    "I'm no judge, Urza, but to my poor eyes it looks .. . 
similar."
    "You must get closer." He offered her a glass lens set 
in an ivory ring.
    It might have been seething poison for the enthusiasm 
with which she took it. He offered her his stool. When that 
didn't entice her, he grabbed her arm and pulled. Xantcha 
clambered onto the stool and bent over the table with the 
glass between her and the gnats.
    Despite reluctance and reservation, Xantcha let out an 
awed sigh; as an artificer, Una was incomparable. What had 
appeared to be gnats were, as she had known they would be, 
tiny automata, each perfectly formed and unique. In 
addition to men and women, there were horses, their tails 
swishing in imperceptible breezes, harnessed to minuscule 
carts. She didn't doubt that each was surrounded by a cloud 
of flies that the glass could not resolve. Nothing on the 
table was alive. Urza was adamant that his artifacts 
remained within what he called "the supreme principle of 
the Thran." Artifacts were engines in service to life, 
never life itself, and never, ever, sentient.
    Bright tents pimpled Urza's table landscape. There were 
even miniature reproductions of the artifacts he and his 
brother had brought to the place and time that Kayla had 
called "The Dawn of Fire."
    Xantcha focused her attention on the automata. She 
found Mishra's shiny dragon engine, a ground-bound 
bumblebee among the gnats and Urza's delicate ornithopters. 
When Xantcha saw an ornithopter spread its wings and rise 
above the table, she was confident that she'd seen the 
reason for Urza's summons. Miniaturizing those early 
artifacts had been a greater challenge than creating the 
swarms of tiny men and women who milled around them.
    "You've got them flying!"
    Urza pushed her aside. His eyes required no polished 
glass assistance; he could most likely see the horseflies, 
the fleas, and the worms as well. Xantcha noticed that he 
was frowning.
    "It's very good," she assured him, fearing that her 
initial response hadn't been sincere enough.
    "No, no! You were looking in the wrong place, Xantcha. 
Look here-" He positioned her hands above the largest tent. 
"What do you see now?"
    "Blue cloth," she replied, knowing full well that 
within the tent, automata representing Urza and the major 
characters of Kayla's epic were midway through a scene 
she'd observed many times before. At first she'd been 
curious to see how Urza's script might differ from his 
wife's, but not any more.
    Urza muttered something-it was probably just as well 
that Xantcha didn't quite catch it-and the blue cloth 
became a shadow through which the automata could be clearly 
seen. There was Urza, accurate down to the same blue shirt 
and threadbare trousers. His master-student, Tawnos, stood 
nearby, a half head taller than the rest. The Kroog 
warlord, the Fallaji qadir and a score of others, all 
moving as if they were alive and oblivious to the huge face 
hovering overhead. Mishra was in the shadowed tent too, but 
Urza was peculiar about his younger brother's gnat. While 
all the others had mortal features, Mishra was never more 
than wisps of metal at the qadir's side.
    "Is it the second morning?" Xantcha asked. Urza was 
breathing down her neck, expecting conversation. She hoped 
he didn't intend to show her the assassinations. Suffering, 
even of automata, repelled her.
    Another grumble from Urza, then, "Look for Ashnod!"
    According to The Antiquity Wars, auburn-haired Ashnod 
wasn't at "The Dawn of Fire," but Urza always made a gnat 
in her image. He'd put it on the table, where it did 
nothing except get in the way of the others. To appease her 
hovering companion, Xantcha moved the glass slightly and 
found a red-capped dot in the shadow of another tent.
    "You moved her there?"
    "Never!" Urza roared. His eyes flashed, and the air 
within the cottage was very still. "I refine my 
understanding, I do not ever control them. Each time, I 
create new opportunities for the truth to emerge. Time, 
Xantcha, time is always the key. I call them motes of time-
the tiny motes of time that replay the past, long after 
events have passed beyond memory. The more I refine my 
automata, the more of those motes I can attract. Truth 
attracts truth as time attracts time Xantcha, and the more 
motes of time I can attract, the more truth I learn about 
that day. And finally- finally-the truth clings to Ashnod, 
and she has been drawn out of her lies and deception. Watch 
as she reveals what I have always suspected!"
    Urza snapped his fingers, and, equally fascinated and 
repelled, Xantcha watched Ashnod's gnat skulk from shadow 
to shadow until it was outside the parley tent, very near 
Mishra's back. Then the Ashnod-gnat knelt and manipulated 
something-the glass wasn't strong enough to unmask the 
object-and a tiny spark leaped from her hands. Mishra's 
wisps and filings glowed green.
    The illusion of movement and free will was so seamless 
that Xantcha asked, "What did she do?" rather than What did 
it do?
    "What do you think? Were your eyes open? Were you 
paying attention? Must I move them backward and do it 
again?" Urza replied.
    Urza was less tolerant of free will in his companions. 
Xantcha marveled that Tawnos never left him, but perhaps, 
Urza had been less acid-tongued in his mortal days. "I 
don't know." She set the lens on a shelf slung beneath the 
table. "It has never been my place to think. Tell me, and I 
will stand enlightened."
    Their eyes locked, and for a moment Xantcha stared into 
the ancient jewels through which Urza interpreted his life. 
Urza could reduce her to memory, but he blinked first.
    "Proof. Proof at last. Ashnod's the one. I always 
suspected she was the first the Phyrexians suborned." Urza 
seized the lens and thrust it back into Xantcha's hands. 
"Now, look at the dragon engine. The Yotians have not begun 
to move against the qadir, but see . . . see? It has 
already awakened. Ashnod cast her spark upon my brother, 
and he called to it. It would only respond to him, you 
know."
    Xantcha didn't peer through the lens. A blanket of 
light had fallen across the worktable, a hungry blanket 
that rose into Urza's glowing eyes rather than fell from 
them.
    "Mishra! Mishra!" Urza whispered. "If only you could 
see me, hear me. I was not there for you then, but I am 
here for you now.
    Cast your heart upward and I will open your eyes to the 
treachery around you!"
    Xantcha didn't doubt Urza's ability, only his sanity, 
especially when he started talking to his gnat-brother. 
Urza believed that each moment of time contained every 
other moment, and that it was possible to not only recreate 
the past but to reach into it and affect it. Someday, as 
sure as the sun rose in the east, Urza would talk to the 
gnats on his table. He'd tell Mishra all the secrets of his 
heart, and Mishra would answer him. None of it would be the 
truth, but all of it would be real.
    Xantcha dreaded that coming day. She set the lens down 
again and tried to distract Urza with a question. "So, your 
side-?"
    Urza focused his eyes uncanny light on her face. "Not 
my side! I was not a party to anything that happened that 
day! I was ignorant of everything. They lied to me and 
deceived me. They knew I would never consent to their 
treachery. I would have stopped them. I would have warned 
my brother!"
    Xantcha beat a tactical retreat. "Of course. But even 
if you had, the end would not have changed," she said in 
her most soothing tone. "If you've got it right, now, then 
the warlord's schemes were irrelevant. Through Ashnod, the 
Phyrexians had their own treachery-against the qadir and 
the warlord, against you and Mishra. None of you were meant 
to survive."
    "Yes," Urza said on a caught breath. "Yes! Exactly! 
Neither the qadir nor the warlord were supposed to survive. 
It was a plot to capture me as they had already captured my 
brother. Thus he was willing, but also reluctant, to talk 
to me!" He turned back to the table. "I understand, 
Brother. I forgive! Be strong, Mishra-I will find a way to 
save you as I saved myself."
    Xantcha repressed a shudder. There were inconsistencies 
among her copies of The Antiquity Wars but none on the 
scale Urza proposed. "Was your brother transformed then, or 
still flesh?"
    Urza backed away from the table. His eyes were clouded, 
almost normal in appearance. "I will learn that next time, 
or the time after that. They have suborned him. See how he 
responds to Ashnod. She was their first creature. They must 
have known that if we talked privately, I would have sensed 
the change in him. . . .
    I would have set him free. If there was still any part 
of him left that could have been freed. Or, I would have 
turned my wrath on them from that point forward. They knew 
I could not be suborned, Xantcha, because I possessed the 
Mightstone. The stones have equal power, Xantcha, but the 
power is different. The Weak-stone is weakness, the 
Mightstone is strength, and the Phyrexians never dared my 
strength. Ah, the evil that day, Xantcha. If they had not 
driven us apart, there would have been no war, except 
against them. . . . You see that, Xantcha. You see that, 
don't you? My brother and I together would have driven them 
back to Koilos. They knew our power before we'd begun to 
guess it."
    They and them. They and them. With Urza, it all came 
back to they and them: Phyrexians. Xantcha knew the 
Phyrexians for the enemies they were. She'd never argue 
that they hadn't played a pivotal role in Urza's wars. 
Perhaps they had suborned Mishra and Ashnod, too. But while 
Urza played with gnats on a tabletop, another wave of 
Phyrexians, real Phyrexians, had washed up on Dominaria's 
shores.
    "It makes no difference," she protested. "Mishra's been 
dead for more than three thousand years! It hardly matters 
whether you failed him, or Ashnod destroyed him, or the 
Phyrexians suborned him, or whether it happened before "The 
Dawn of Fire" or after. Urza, you're creating a past that 
doesn't matter-"
    "Doesn't matter! They took my brother from me, and made 
of him my greatest enemy. It matters, Xantcha. It will 
always matter more than anything else. I must learn what 
they did and how and when they did it." He breathed, a slow 
sigh. "I could have stopped them. I must not fail again." 
He held his hands above the table. Xantcha didn't need the 
lens to know that Mishra's gnat shone bright. "I won't, 
Mishra. I will never fail again. I have learned caution. I 
have learned deception. I will not be tricked, not even by 
you!"
    Before Urza had brought Xantcha to Dominaria, she'd 
been more sympathetic to his guilt-driven obsessions. Now 
she said, "Not even you can change the past," and didn't 
care if he struck her down for impudence. "Are you going to 
stand by and play with toys while the Phyrexians steal your 
birthplace from you? They're back. I smelled them in 
Baszerat and Morvern. The Baszerati and the Morvernish are 
at war with each other, just as the Yotians and the Fallaji 
were, and the Phyrexians are on both sides. Sound 
familiar?"
    Her neck ached from staring up at him and braving his 
gem-stone stare. Xantcha had no arcane power to draw upon, 
but nose to nose, she was more stubborn. "Why are we here," 
she asked in the breathless silence, "if you're not going 
to take a stand against the Phyrexians? We could play games 
anywhere."
    Urza retreated. He moistened his lips and made other 
merely mortal gestures. "Not games, Xantcha. I can afford 
no more mistakes. Dominaria has not forgotten or forgiven 
what happened last time. I must tread lightly. So many 
died, so much was destroyed, and all because I was blind 
and deaf. I did not see that my brother was not himself, 
that he was surrounded by enemies. I didn't hear his pleas 
for help."
    "He never pled for help! That's why you didn't hear, 
and you can never know why he didn't, because you can never 
talk to him again. No matter what happens in this room, on 
that table, you can't bring him back! Now you've got Ashnod 
outside the tent. You've made her into another Phyrexian, 
pulling Mishra's strings. The Yotians were planning an 
ambush, the Phyrexians were planning an ambush, and you 
weren't wise to either plot. Waste not, want not, Urza-if 
the Phyrexians had Ashnod before "The Dawn of Fire," how 
did she manage, thirty years later, to send Tawnos to you 
with the sylex? Or was that part of a plot, too? A compleat 
Phyrexian doesn't have a conscience, Urza. A compleat 
Phyrexian doesn't feel remorse; it can't. Mishra never 
did."
    "He couldn't. He'd been suborned," Urza shouted. 
"Usurped. Corrupted. Destroyed! He was no longer a man when 
I faced him in Argoth. They'd taken his will, flensed his 
flesh and stretched it over an abomination!"
    "But they didn't take Ashnod's will? She sent the 
sylex. Was her will stronger than your brother's?"
    Xantcha played a dangerous game herself and played it 
to the brink. Urza had frozen, no blinking or breathing, as 
if he'd become an artifact himself. Xantcha pressed her 
advantage.
    "Was Ashnod stronger than you too? Strong enough to 
double-deal the Phyrexians and save Dominaria in the only 
way she could?"
    "No," Urza whispered.
    "No? No what, Urza? Once you start treating bom men and 
women as Phyrexians, where do you stop? Ashnod skulking 
outside your tent before the Dawn of Fire, Ashnod sending 
Tawnos with the sylex? One time she's a Phyrexian puppet, 
the next she's not? Are you sure you know which is which? 
Or, maybe, she was the puppet both times, and what would 
that make you? You used the sylex."
    Urza folded a fist. "Stop," he warned.
    "The Phyrexians spent three thousand years trying to 
slay you, before they gave up. I think they gave up because 
they'd found a better way. Leave you alone on a 
mountainside playing with toys!"
    He'd have been a powerful man if muscle and bone had 
been his strength's only source, but Urza had the power of 
the Thran through his eyes, and the power of a sorcerer 
standing on his native ground. His arm began to move. As 
long as she could see it moving, Xantcha believed she was 
safe.
    The fist touched her hair and stopped. Xantcha held her 
breath. He'd never come that close, never actually touched 
her before. They couldn't go on like this, not if there was 
any hope for Dominaria.
    "Urza?" she whispered when, at last, her lungs demanded 
air. "Urza, can you hear me? Do you see me?" Xantcha 
touched his arm. "Urza . . . Urza, talk to me."
    He trembled and grabbed her shoulder for balance. He 
didn't know his strength; pain left her gasping. Her eyes 
were shut when he made the transition, temporary even at 
the best of times, back into the here and now. Something 
happened to Urza when he cast his power over the worktable, 
not the truth, but definitely real and definitely getting 
worse.
    "Xantcha!" his hand sprang away from her as though she 
were made from red-hot metal. "Xantcha, what is this?" He 
stared at the crockery mountains as if he'd never seen them 
before - though Xantcha had seen even that reaction more 
times than she cared to remember.
    "You summoned me, Urza," she said flatly. "You had 
something new to show me."
    "But this?" He gestured at his mountain-and-gnat 
covered table. "Where did this come from. Not-not me. Not 
again?"
    She nodded.
    "I was sitting on the porch as the sun set. It was 
quiet, peaceful. I thought of-I thought of the past, 
Xantcha, and it began again." He shrank within himself. 
"You weren't here."
    "I was after food. You were inside when I returned. 
Urza, you've got to let go of the past. It's not. . . It's 
not healthy. Even for you, this is not healthy."
    They stared at each other. This had happened so many 
times before that there was no longer a need for 
conversation. Even the moment when Urza swept everything 
off his table was entirely predictable.
    "It's started, Urza, truly started. This time there's a 
war south of here," Xantcha said, while dust still rose 
from the crumbled mountains, quicksilver slithered across 
the packed dirt floor, and gnats by the hundreds scrambled 
for shelter.
    "Phyrexians?"
    "I kenned them on both sides. Sleepers. They take 
orders, they don't give them, but it's a Dominarian war 
with Phyrexian interference on both side."
    He took the details directly from her mind: a painless 
process when she cooperated.
    "Baszerat and Morvern. I do not know these names."
    "They aren't mighty kingdoms with glorious histories. 
They're little more than walled cities, a few villages and, 
to keep the grudge going, a handful of gold mines in the 
hills between them; something for the Phyrexians to 
exploit. They're getting bolder. Baszerat and Morvern 
aren't the only places I've scented glistening oil in the 
wind, but this is the first war."
    "You haven't interfered?"
    His voice harshened and his eyes flashed. With Urza, 
madness was never more than a moment away.
    "You said I mustn't, and I obey. You should look for 
yourself. Now is the time-"
    "Perhaps. I dare not move too soon. The land remembers; 
there can be no mistakes. I must have cause. I must be very 
careful, Xantcha. If I reveal myself too soon, I foresee 
disaster. We must weigh our choices carefully."
    Retorts swirled in Xantcha's mind. It was never truly 
we with Urza, but she'd made her choices long ago. "No one 
will suspect, even if you used your true name and shape. 
There've been a score of doom-saying Urzas on the road this 
year alone. You've become the stuff of legends. No one 
would believe you're you."
    A rare smile lit up her companion's face. "That bad 
still?"
    "Worse. But please, go to Baszerat and Morvern. A 
quarrel has become a war. So it began with the Fallaji and 
the Yotians. Who knows, there might be brothers.... You've 
been up here too long, Urza."
    Urza reached into her mind again, gathering landmarks 
and languages, which she willingly surrendered. Then, in a 
blink's time, she was back into her own proper 
consciousness. Urza faded into the between-worlds, which 
was, among other things, the fastest way to travel across 
the surface of a single world.
    "Good luck," she wished him, then knelt down.
    Crashing crockery had crushed a good many of Urza's 
gnats. Quicksilver had dissolved uncounted others. Yet many 
swirled around in confusion on the floor. Xantcha labored 
until midnight, gathering them into a box no deeper than 
her finger, but far too steep for any of them to climb. 
When the dirt was motionless, she took the box into the 
alcove where Urza stored his raw materials.
    The shelves were neat. Every casket and flask was 
clearly labeled, albeit in a language Xantcha couldn't 
read. She didn't need to read labels. The flask she wanted 
had a unique lambent glow. It was pure phloton, distilled 
from fire, starlight and mana, a recipe Urza had found on 
the world were he'd found Xantcha. "Waste not, want not," 
she whispered over the seething box. The gnats blazed like 
fireflies as they fell through the phloton, and then were 
gone.
    Xantcha resealed the flask and replaced it on the 
shelf, exactly as she'd found it, before returning to her 
own room. She had a plan of her own, which she'd promised 
herself she'd implement when the time was right. That time 
had come when Urza touched her hair.
    If Urza couldn't see the present Phyrexian threat 
because he was obsessed with the past... If he couldn't 
care about the folk of Baszerat or Morvem because he still 
cared too much about what had happened to Mishra, then 
Xantcha figured she had to bring the past and Mishra to 
Urza. She had it all worked out in her mind, as much as she 
ever worked anything out: find a young man who resembled 
Kayla's word picture, teach him the answers to Urza's 
guilty questions, then troll her trumped-up Mishra past 
Urza's eyes.
    A new Mishra wouldn't cure his madness. Nothing could 
do that, not while those powerstone eyes were lodged in 
Urza's skull, but if a false Mishra could convince Urza to 
walk away from his worktable, that would be enough.
 
                        CHAPTER 3
 
    Morning came to the Ohran Ridge, and found Xantcha 
sitting in the bottom of a transparent sphere as it drifted 
above springtime mountain meadows. The sphere was as big 
around as Xantcha was tall and had been a gift from Urza. 
Or more accurately, the artifact that produced it had been 
Urza's gift. He'd devised the cyst to preserve her as she 
followed him from world to world. A deliberate yawn and a 
mnemonic rhyme drew a protective oil out of the cyst. 
Depending on the rhyme, the oil expanded into the buoyant 
sphere or ripened into a tough, flexible armor.
    Urza had taught Xantcha the rhyme for the armor. The 
sphere was the result of Xantcha's curiosity and 
improvisations. Urza complained that she'd transformed his 
Thran-inspired artifact into a Phyrexian abomination. The 
complaint, though sincere, had always perplexed Xantcha. 
The Thran, as Urza described them, believed that sentience 
and artifice must always be separate. Xantcha's cyst wasn't 
remotely sentient, and she supposed she could have dug it 
out of her stomach, but it had become part of her, no 
different than her arms ... or Urza's faceted eyes. 
Besides, if she hadn't discovered how to make her sphere, 
Urza would have had to provide her with food, clothing, and 
all the other things a flesh and blood person required, 
because Xantcha, though she was almost as old as Urza, was 
indisputably flesh and blood.
    And just as indisputably Phyrexian.
    Xantcha willed the sphere higher, seeking the swift 
wind-streams well above the mountains. She had a long 
journey planned, and needed strong winds if she wanted to 
finish it before Urza returned from the south. The sphere 
rose until the landscape resembled Urza's tabletop, and the 
sphere began to tumble.
    Tumbling never bothered Xantcha. With or without the 
cyst, she had a strong stomach and an unshakable sense of 
direction. But tumbling wasted time and energy. Xantcha 
raised her arms level with her shoulders, one straight out 
in front of her, the other extended to the side; the 
tumbling stopped. Then she pointed both extended arms in 
the direction she wished to travel and rotated her hands so 
they were both palms up. She thought of rigging and sails, 
a firm hand on the tiller board, and the sphere began to 
move against the wind.
    It was slow going at first, but before the sun had 
risen another two hand spans, Xantcha was scudding north 
faster than any horse could run. Xantcha couldn't explain 
how the sphere stayed aloft. It wasn't sorcery; she had no 
talent for calling upon the land. Urza swore it wasn't 
anything to do with him or his artifacts and refused to 
discuss the matter. Xantcha thought it was no different 
than running. The whys and wherefores weren't important so 
long as she found what she was looking for and got home 
safe.
    But questions lurked where Xantcha's memories began. 
They crept forward once the sphere was moving smartly, and 
there was nothing to do but think and remember.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    The beginning was liquid, thick and warm as blood, dark 
and safe. After the liquid came light and cold, emptiness 
and hard edges, a dim chamber in the Fane of Flesh, the 
first place she'd known, a soot-stained monolith of 
Phyrexia's Fourth Sphere. Her beginning wasn't birth, not 
as Urza had been born from his mother's body. There were no 
mothers or fathers in the decanting chamber only metal and 
leather priests tending stone-gouged vats. The vat-priests 
of the Fane of Flesh were of no great status. Though 
compleat, their appliances were mere hooks and paddles and 
their senses were no better than the flesh they'd been 
decanted with. They took orders from above. In Phyrexia 
there was always above-or within, deeper and deeper through 
the eight spheres to the center where dwelt the Ineffable. 
He whose name was known but never spoken, lest he awaken 
from his blessed sleep.
    Obey, the vat-priests said unnecessarily as she'd 
shivered and discovered her limbs. A small, warm stone fell 
from her hands. The vat-priests had said it was her heart 
and took it from her. There was a place, they said-in 
Phyrexia everything had a place, without place there was 
nothing-where hearts were kept. Her mistakes would be 
written on her heart, and if she made too many mistakes, 
the Ineffable who dwelt at Phyrexia's core would make her a 
part of his dreams, and that would be the end of her. Obey 
and learn. Pay attention. Make no mistakes. Now, follow. 
Later, when Xantcha had crossed more planes and visited 
more worlds than she could easily recount, she'd realize 
that there was no other place like Phyrexia. In no other 
world were full-grown newts, like her, decanted beside a 
sludge-vat. Only Phyrexian newts remembered the first 
opening of their eyes. Only Phyrexian newts remembered, and 
understood, the first words-threats- they heard. In her 
beginning, there was only the Fane of Flesh, and she obeyed 
without question, writhing across the stone floor because 
she hadn't the strength to walk.
    Xantcha's bones hardened quickly. She learned to tend 
herself and perform such tasks as were suited to newts. 
When she had mastered those lessons, the vat-priests led 
her to the teacher-priests, who instructed the newts as 
they were transformed from useless flesh into compleat 
Phyrexians. The teacher-priests with their recording eyes 
and stinging-switch arms told her that she was Xantcha.
    Xantcha wasn't a name, not as she later came to 
understood names. When Urza had asked, she had explained 
that Xantcha was the place where she stood when newts were 
assembled for instruction, the place where she received her 
food, and the box where she slept at night.
    If days or nights had played a part in her early life.
    Phyrexia was a world without sun, moon, or stars. Deep 
in the Fane of Flesh, priests called out the march of time: 
when she learned, when she ate, when she slept; there was 
no time for rest, no place for companionship. When she was 
returned to her box for sleeping, Xantcha dreamed of 
sunlight, grass and wind. She might have thought it strange 
that her mind held images of a place so clearly not 
Phyrexia, if she'd thought at all.
    Even now, more than three millennia after her first 
awakenings, Xantcha didn't know if she'd been the only newt 
who'd dreamed of a green, sunlit world, or if the Ineffable 
had commanded the same dreams and longings for every newt 
that learned beside her.
    You are newts, and newts you will remain, the teacher-
priests had taught her. You are destined to sleep in 
another place and prepare the way for those who will 
follow. Listen and obey.
    There were many other newts in the Fane of Flesh, 
organized into cadres and marched together through their 
educations. All newts began the same way, with meat and 
bones and blood-filled veins, then-according to their place 
in the Ineffable's design- tender-priests excised their 
flesh and reshaped their bodies with tough amalgams of 
metal and oil, until they were compleated. After each 
reshaping, the priests sent the excised flesh and blood to 
the renderers; eventually it was returned it to the vats. 
When the newt was fully reshaped, the tenders immersed it 
in the glistening oil; a Phyrexian's first time in the 
great fountain outside the Fane of Flesh. When it emerged, 
the newt was compleat and took its destined place in the 
Ineffable's grand plan for Phyrexia.
    Xantcha remembered standing in her place on a Fane 
balcony, as fully reshaped newts were carried to the 
fountain. She remembered the cacophony as newly compleated 
Phyrexians emerged into the glare and glow of the Fourth 
Sphere furnaces. To the extent that any newt felt hope, it 
hoped for a good compleation, a privileged place. The 
knowledge that she would be forever bound in a newt's body 
was greater pain than any punishment the priests ever 
lashed across her back.
    Hatred had no place in Phyrexia. Contempt replaced 
hatred and looked down on the special newts, whose destiny 
was to sleep in another place. Xantcha looked forward to 
the moments when she was alone in her box with her dreams.
    Once she went to sleep, dreamed her dreams, as she'd 
always done, and awoke beneath the bald, gray sky of the 
First Sphere. There were different teacher-priests tending 
her cadre. The new priests were larger than those in the 
Fane of Flesh. More metal than leather, they had four feet 
and four arms. Their feet were clawed, and each of their 
arms ended in a different metal weapons. They were supposed 
to protect the newts from the dangers of the First Sphere. 
Newts had never dwelt on the First Sphere, but the four-
armed teachers were not honored by their new 
responsibilities. They obeyed their orders without 
enthusiasm, until one of the newts made a mistake.
    Newts you are, and newts you shall remain forever, 
they'd recite as they dealt out punishment with one hand 
after the other. You are destined to sleep on another 
world. Now learn the ways of another world. Listen and 
obey.
    Xantcha wondered what would have happened if she'd 
failed to listen or obey. At the time, the notion simply 
didn't occur to her. Life on the First Sphere was hard 
enough without disobedience. The newts were taught farming, 
in preparation for the day when their destiny would be 
fulfilled, but the slippery dirt of the First Sphere 
resisted their every effort. The plows, sickles, hoes, and 
pitchforks that they were commanded to use left their 
muscles aching. The whiplike, razor-grass-the only plant 
they could grow-slashed them bloody, and the harsh light 
blistered their skin mercilessly.
    Xantcha remembered another newt, Gi'anzha; whose place 
was near hers in the cadre. Gi'anzha had used a grass sheaf 
to hack off its arm, then shoved a pitchfork shaft into the 
bloody socket. Gi'anzha was meat by the time they found it, 
but Xantcha and the other newts understood why it had done 
what it had.
    Newts were small and fragile compared to everything 
else that dwelt on the First Sphere. Their uncompleated 
bodies suffered injuries rather than malfunctions. They 
could not be repaired but were left to heal as best they 
could, which sometimes wasn't good enough. Failed newts-
meat newts-were whisked back to the Fourth Sphere for 
rendering. Waste not, want not, nothing in Phyrexia was 
completely without use, though meat was reviled by the 
compleat, who'd transcended their flesh and were sustained 
by glistening oil.
    As her cadre was reduced to meat, Xantcha's place 
within it changed. Another newt should have been Xantcha, 
she should have become G'xi'kzi or Kra'tzin, but too much 
time had passed since the vat-priests had organized the 
cadre. The patterns of their minds were as fixed as those 
of their soft, battered bodies. Xantcha she was, and 
Xantcha she remained, even when the cadre had shrunk so 
much that the priests alloyed it with another, similarly 
depleted group.
    Xantcha found herself face-to-face with another 
Xantcha. For both of them, it was. . . confusion. The word 
scarcely existed in Phyrexia, except to describe the clots 
of slag and ash that accumulated beneath the great 
furnaces. Together they consulted the priests, as newts 
were trained to do. The priests judged that as a result of 
the recombination, neither of them truly stood in the spot 
of Xantcha. The alloyed cadre's Xantcha was a third newt, 
who thought of itself as Hoz'krin and wanted no part of 
this Xantcha confusion. Xantcha and Xantcha were each told 
to recognize new places within the alloyed cadre or face 
the lash.
    Lash or no, the priests' judgment was not acceptable. 
Places had become names that could not be surrendered, even 
under the threat of punishment. The Xantchas stayed awake 
when they should have slept in their boxes. They slipped 
away from the priests and spoke to each other privately. 
Meeting in private with another newt was something neither 
had done before. They negotiated and they compromised, 
though there were no Phyrexian words for either process. 
They agreed to make themselves unique. Xantcha broke off a 
blade of the razor-sharp grass and hacked off the hair 
growing on the left side of her skull. The other Xantcha 
soaked its hair in an acid stream until it turned orange.
    They had rebelled-a word as forbidden as the 
Ineffable's true name and almost as feared. Only the 
tender-priests could change a newt's shape and only 
according to the Ineffable's plan. When the Xantchas 
returned to the place where their cadre gathered for food 
and sleep, the other newts gaped and turned away, as the 
teacher-priests came rumbling and clanking from the 
perimeter.
    Xantcha had taken the other newt's flesh-fingered hand. 
Thirty-three hundred Dominarian years afterward, Xantcha 
knew that the touch of flesh was a language unto itself, a 
language that Phyrexia had forgotten. At the time, the 
gesture had confused the priests utterly and left them 
spinning in their tracks.
    Not long after, the bald, gray sky had brightened 
painfully.
    Xantcha had recalled her heart and the vat-priests' 
threat: too many mistakes and the Ineffable would seize her 
heart. Until the other Xantcha had tumbled into her life, 
she'd made less than her share of the cadre's mistakes, but 
perhaps one mistake, if it were great enough, was enough to 
rouse the Ineffable.
    She'd thought the shining creature who'd descended from 
the too-bright sky was the Ineffable. He was nothing like 
the priests she'd seen and nothing at all like a newt. His 
eyes were intensely red, and an abundance of teeth filled 
his protruding jaw. And she'd known, perhaps because of 
that jaw filled with teeth, that it was he, as the 
Ineffable was he and not it in the way of newts and 
priests.
    "You can call me Gix," he'd said, using his toothsome 
jaw to shape the words in an almost newtish way, though he 
didn't have the soft-flesh lips that were useful for eating 
but got in the way of proper Phyrexian pronunciation.
    Oix was a name, the first true name Xantcha had ever 
heard, because it couldn't be interpreted as a place within 
a cadre. Gix was a demon, a Phyrexian who'd looked upon the 
Ineffable face with his own eyes and who, while the 
Ineffable slept, controlled Phyrexia. From a newt's lowly 
perspective, a demon's name might just as well be 
ineffable.
    Gix offered his hand. The only sound Xantcha heard was 
a slight whirring as his arm extended and extended to at 
least twice his height. As Gix's hand unfurled, black 
talons sprang from each elegantly articulated finger. He 
touched the other Xantcha lightly beneath its chin. Xantcha 
felt trembling terror in the other newt's hand. The demon's 
talons looked as if they could pierce a priest's leather 
carapace or go straight through a newt's skull. A blue-
green spark leapt from the demon to the other Xantcha, 
whose hand immediately warmed, relaxed, and slipped away.
    Deep-pitched rumbling came out of the demon's throat. 
He lowered his hand, his head swiveled slightly, and 
Xantcha felt a cold, green light take her measure. Gix 
didn't touch her as he'd touched the other Xantcha. His arm 
retreated, each segment clicking sharply into the one 
behind it, then more whirring as his jaw assumed a sickle 
smile.
    "Xantcha."
    All remaining doubts about the difference between names 
and places vanished. Xantcha had become a true name, and 
confronted with him, Xantcha became her. The notions for 
male and female, dominance and submission, were already in 
Xantcha's mind, rooted in her dreams of soft, green grass 
and yellow sun.
    "You will be ready," the demon said. "I made you. No 
simple rendering for you, Xantcha. Fresh meat. Fresh blood. 
Brought here from the place where you will go, where you 
will conquer. You have their cunning, their boldness, and 
their unpredictability, Xantcha, but your heart is mine. 
You are mine forever."
    The demon meant to frighten her, and he did; he meant 
to distract her, too, while a blue-green spark formed on 
his shiny brass brow. In that, he was less successful. 
Xantcha saw the spark race toward her, felt it strike the 
ridge between her eyes and bury itself in the bone. The 
demon had inserted himself in her mind.
    He made himself glorious before her. At least, that's 
what he tried to do. Xantcha felt the urge to worship him 
in awe and obedience, to feed him with the mind-storm 
turbulence no compleat Phyrexian could experience, except 
by proxy. Gix made promises in Xantcha's mind: privilege, 
power, and passion, all of them irresistible, or meant to 
be irresistible, but Xantcha resisted. She made a new place 
for herself, within herself. It wasn't terribly difficult. 
If there could be two Xantcha's within the cadre, there 
could be two within her mind, a Xantcha who belonged to Gix 
and a Xantcha who did not.
    She filled the part that belonged to Gix with images 
from her dreams: blue skies, green grass, and gentle 
breezes. The demon drank them down, then spat them out. The 
light went out of his eyes. He turned away from her, to 
others in her cadre and found them more entertaining. For 
her part, Xantcha stood very still. She had denied the 
demon, rejected him before he could reject her. She 
expected instant annihilation, but the Ineffable did not 
seize her. Whatever else she had done, it was not a mistake 
great enough to destroy her heart.
    After sating himself on newtish thoughts and passions, 
Gix departed. The teacher-priests sought to reclaim their 
place above the cadre, but after the elegance and horror of 
a demon, they seemed puny. In time, they became afraid of 
their charges and kept their distance as the newts began to 
talk more freely among themselves, planning for their 
glorious futures on other worlds.
    Xantcha maintained her place, eating, sleeping, 
laboring, and taking part in the discussions, but she was 
no longer like the other newts. That moment when she'd 
created two Xantchas in her mind had transformed her, as 
surely as the tender-priests reshaped newts in the Fane of 
Flesh. She was aware of herself as no one else-except Gix-
seemed to be. She stumbled into loneliness, and, seeking 
relief from that singular ache, she sought out the Xantcha 
whose hand she'd once held.
    "I am without," she'd said, because at the time she 
hadn't known a better word. "I need to touch you."
    She'd offered both hands, but the other Xantcha had 
reeled backward, screaming as if it were in terrible pain. 
The rest of the cadre swarmed between them, and Xantcha was 
lucky to survive.
    Xantcha remembered the newt that had sawed off its arm 
with the razor grass, but what she wanted was an end to her 
isolation, not an end of existence. She considered running 
away. The First Sphere was vast. A newt could easily lose 
herself beyond the shimmering horizon, but if she placed 
herself beyond her cadre and its priests, Xantcha would 
slowly starve, because despite their constant efforts with 
hoes and plows and sickles, nothing edible grew in First 
Sphere's soil. Except for the meaty sludge brought up from 
Fane of Flesh, there was nothing on Phyrexia's First Sphere 
that a newt could eat.
    When the cadre closed ranks to keep her from the 
simmering cauldrons the priests brought from the Fane, 
Xantcha picked up a sickle and cleared a path to her place. 
Five newts went down with the cauldron for rendering; one 
priest, too. Xantcha went to sleep with a full stomach and 
the sense that she'd never reopen her eyes. But neither Gix 
nor the Ineffable came to claim her. Once again, it seemed 
that she hadn't made a mistake.
    Others did . . . newts began to disappear, a few at a 
time while they slept. Xantcha contrived to make a tiny 
hole in her box. She kept watch when she should have been 
asleep, but the Ineffable wasn't consuming newts. Instead, 
priests picked up a box here, a box there, and took them 
away. Speaker-equipped priests could spew words faster than 
soft-lipped newts; sometimes they forgot that newts heard 
faster than they spoke. Xantcha hid in a place on the edge 
and listened to chittering, metallic conversations.
    The moment she and the others had been promised since 
their decanting had arrived. Newts were leaving Phyrexia. 
They were sleeping on another world. One of the priests had 
gone through the portal. It didn't like what it had found. 
Its coils had corroded and its joints had clogged because 
water, not oil, flowed everywhere: in fountains, across the 
land and in blinding torrents from the sky that was 
sometimes blue, sometimes black, sometimes speckled and 
sometimes streaked with fire. A worthless place, the priest 
said, rust and dust, fit only for newts.
    Xantcha held her breath, as she'd held it before Gix. 
Although she'd never seen or felt it, she remembered water 
and knew in her bones that a place where water fell from 
the sky would be a place where a newt could get lost 
without necessarily starving. She began to make herself 
more useful, more visible, to the others, in hopes that the 
priests would pick her box, but though the disappearances 
continued, the priests didn't take her.
    The cadre withered. Xantcha was certain she'd be taken 
away. There simply weren't that many left. Then the taking 
stopped. The newts slept and worked, slept and worked. 
Xantcha wasn't the only one who listened to the priests. 
None of them liked what they heard. There were problems in 
the other world. Newts had been exposed and destroyed.
    Thirty centuries after the fact, when she and Urza 
returned to Dominaria, Xantcha had pieced together what 
might have happened. Appended to some of the oldest 
chronicles in her collection were accounts of strangers, 
undersized and eerily identical, who'd appeared suddenly 
and throughout what was left of Ter-isiare, some twenty 
years after the Brothers' War had ended. The Dominarians 
hadn't guessed what the strangers suddenly tromping through 
their fields were or where they'd come from, but ignorance 
hadn't kept them from exterminating the nearly defenseless 
newts. But at the time, in Phyrexia, there'd been only 
whispers of disaster, thwarted destiny, and newts 
transformed to meat in a place where not even the Ineffable 
could find them.
    The whispers reached Xantcha's cadre along with orders 
that they were to move. New cadres were coming, fresh from 
the Fane of Flesh. Xantcha caught sight of them as she 
dragged her box through the sharp, oily grass. The 
replacement cadres were composed of newts who were bigger 
than her. No two of the larger newts were quite the same 
and every one was obviously male or female.
    Xantcha had lost her destiny. She and the rest of her 
depleted cadre became redundant. Even the tools with which 
they'd turned the sterile Phyrexian soil were taken away, 
and the food cauldrons, which had always arrived promptly 
between periods of work and sleep, sleep and work, appeared 
only before sleep ... if the cadre was lucky.
    Luck. A word that went with despair. Denied their 
promised place, some newts crawled into their boxes and 
never came out again. Not Xantcha. As regarded luck, Gix 
was lucky that she didn't know where to find him or how to 
destroy him. It took time to grow a newt in the vats, and 
more time to teach it the most basic tasks, and transform 
it into a Phyrexian. So much time that the male and female 
newts she'd glimpsed farming her cadre's old place must 
have been already growing in the vats when the demon had 
planted his blue-green spark in her skull.
    Oix had lied to her. It was a small thing compared to 
the other hardships she endured, now that her cadre was 
redundant, but it sustained her for a long time until 
another wave of rumors swept across the First Sphere. A 
knife had sliced through the passage that connected 
Phyrexia with the other world; it had broken and was beyond 
repair. Half of the larger newts were trapped on the wrong 
side; the rest were as redundant as she had become.
    Without warning, as was usually the case in her 
Phyrexian life, all the redundant newts, including Xantcha, 
were summoned to the Fourth Sphere to witness the 
excoriation of the demon Gix. The Ineffable's plan for 
Phyrexian glory had been thwarted by the Knife and someone 
had to be punished. Gix's lustrous carapace was corroded 
and burnt before he was consigned to the Seventh Sphere for 
torment. It was a magnificent spectacle. Gix fought like 
the hellspawn he was, taking four fellow demons into the 
reeking fumarole with him. Their shrieks were momentarily 
louder than the roar of the crowds and furnaces, though 
they faded quickly.
    For a while, Xantcha remained in the Fourth Sphere. She 
had no place, no assignment. In a place as tightly 
organized as Phyrexia, a place-less newt should have been 
noticeable, but Xantcha wasn't. She dwelt among the 
gremlins. Even in Phyrexia, time spent in gremlin town 
couldn't be called living, but gremlins were flesh. They 
had to eat, and Xantcha ate with them, as she learned 
things about flesh no compleat priest could teach her.
 
                        CHAPTER 4
 
    Chaotic air currents rising above a patchwork of 
cultivated fields seized Xantcha's sphere. For several 
panicked heartbeats, as she battled the provisions bouncing 
around inside the sphere, Xantcha didn't know where she was 
or why. After more than three thousand years, she needed 
that long to climb out of her memories.
    The disorientation had passed before disaster could 
begin. Xantcha was in control before the sphere brushed the 
bank of a tree-shadowed stream. It collapsed around her, a 
warm, moist film that evaporated quickly, as it had 
countless times before, but thoughts of what might have 
happened left her gasping for air.
    Xantcha hadn't intended to lose herself in her 
memories. The past, when there was so much of it crammed 
into a single mind, was a kind of madness. She dropped to 
her knees and wiped the film from her face before it had a 
chance to dry. Between coughs, Xantcha took her bearing 
from the horizons: sun sinking to the west, mountains to 
the south, and gentle hills elsewhere. She'd come to her 
senses over inner Efuan Pincar, precisely the place she'd 
wanted to be. Luck, Xantcha told herself, and succumbed to 
another round of coughing.
    Xantcha never liked to rely on luck, but just then, 
thoughts of luck were preferable to the alternatives. She'd 
been thinking of her beginnings, as she rarely did. Worse, 
she'd been thinking of Gix. She'd never forgotten that 
blue-green spark. Despite everything, she worried that the 
demon's mark might still be lurking somewhere within her 
skull.
    She made herself think about Urza and all that they'd 
survived together. He could look inside her and destroy her 
if she became untrustworthy. So long as he didn't, Xantcha 
believed she could trust herself. But thoughts of Gix were 
no reason to fear Gix. Nothing escaped the excoriations of 
Phyrexia's Seventh Sphere. Even if the blue-green spark 
remained, the demon who'd drilled it into her was gone.
    Urza insisted that she steer clear of Phyrexians, once 
she scented them. He didn't want his enemies to know where 
he was or that he'd returned to the land of his birth. They 
both knew that if she ever fell back into Phyrexian hands, 
they'd strip her memories before they consigned her to the 
Seventh Sphere, and she knew too many of Urza's secrets to 
justify the risk.
    The Phyrexian presence on Dominaria had been growing 
over the past fifty years. Morvern and Baszerat were only 
two among a score of places where Xantcha had once 
scrounged regularly, but were-or soon would be-off limits. 
Efuan Pincar was not, however, among them. The little realm 
on the wrong side of the great island of Gulmany was so 
isolated and unimportant, that the rest of what had once 
been Terisiare scarcely acknowledged its existence. It was 
the last place Xantcha expected to scent a Phyrexian. If 
she'd succumbed to thoughts of Gix while soaring over Efuan 
Pincar, it wasn't because a Phyrexian had tickled her mind, 
but because she'd begun to doubt Urza.
    True, he'd go to the places where she'd scented 
sleepers, and he'd find them, but he wouldn't do anything 
about them. Newts disguised as born-folk weren't enough to 
goad Urza into action. Xantcha thought it would take death 
for that. She'd been perversely pleased when she'd found a 
war in Baszerat and Morvern. She thought for sure that 
would overcome Urza's obsession with the past, and perhaps 
it had; he'd never come so close to striking her.
    Kayla Bin-Kroog hadn't mentioned Efuan Pincar in her 
epic. Efuand chroniclers explained that omission by 
proclaiming that their land had been empty until three 
hundred years ago, when a handful of boats had brought a 
band of refugees to Gulmany's back side. Xantcha doubted 
that there'd ever been enough boats in Terisiare to account 
for all the living Efuands, but scribes lied, she knew that 
from her Antiquity Wars collection. What mattered to 
Xantcha was that among any ten men of Efuan Pincar, at 
least one matched Kayla's word picture of Mishra, and 
another had his impulsive temperament. To find better odds 
she'd have to soar across the Sea of Laments, something 
she'd done just once, by mistake, and had sworn she'd never 
try again.
    Xantcha knew her plan to bring Urza face to face with a 
dark, edgy youth who might remind him of his long-dead 
brother, wasn't the most imaginative strategy, but she was 
Phyrexian, and as Urza never ceased telling her, Phyrexians 
lacked imagination. Urza himself was a genius, a man of 
great power and limitless imagination, when he chose to 
exercise it. Once she had him face-to-face with her false 
Mishra, Xantcha expected Urza's imagination would repair 
any defects in her clumsy Phyrexian strategy.
    Then Xantcha caught herself thinking about other 
notoriously failed strategies: Gix and thousands of 
identical sexless newts.
    "What if I'm wrong?" she asked the setting sun; the 
same question that Urza asked whenever she tried to prod 
him into action.
    The sun didn't answer, so Xantcha gave herself the same 
answer she gave Urza, "Dominaria's doomed if Urza does 
nothing. If he thinks his brother's come back to him, he 
might do something, and something-anything-is better than 
nothing."
    Xantcha watched the last fiery sliver of sunlight 
vanish in the west. Her sphere had dried into a fine white 
powder that disappeared in the breeze. By her best guess, 
she'd been aloft without food, water, or restful sleep for 
two and a half days. There was water in the stream and more 
than enough food in her shoulder sack, but sleep proved 
elusive. Wrapped in her cloak, Xantcha saw
    Gix's toothsome face each time she closed her eyes. 
After watching the stars slide across the sky, she yawned 
out another sphere as the eastern horizon began to 
brighten.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Xantcha hadn't thought she'd find her Mishra in the 
first village she visited. Though experience on other 
worlds had convinced her that every village harbored at 
least one youth with more ambition than sense, it had stood 
to reason that she might need to visit several villages 
before she found the right combination of temperament and 
appearance. But temperament and appearance weren't her 
problems.
    In the twenty years since her last visit, war and 
famine had come to Efuan Pincar. The cultivated field in 
which she'd spent her first sleepless night had proved the 
exception to the new rules. The first village that Xantcha 
approached was still smoldering. The second had trees 
growing from abandoned hearths. Those villages that 
remained intact did so behind palisades of stone, brick, 
and sharpened stakes.
    She approached the closed gates warily, regretting that 
she'd disguised herself as a cocky and aristocratic youth. 
It was an easy charade, one that matched her temperament 
and appearance, but throughout their wandering, she and 
Urza had come across very few wars that couldn't be blamed 
on aristocratic greed or pride.
    The war in Efuan Pincar, however, proved to one of the 
rare exceptions. The gates swung open before she announced 
herself. The whole village greeted her with pleading eyes. 
They'd made assumptions: She was a young man who'd lost his 
horse and companions to the enemy. She needed their help. 
But most of all, they assumed she'd come to help them. 
Outnumbered and curious, Xantcha made her own assumption. 
She'd learn more if she let them believe what they wanted 
to believe.
    "You will go to Pincar City and tell Tabarna what is 
happening?" the village spokesman asked, once he had 
offered her food and drink. "We are all too old to make the 
journey."
    "Tabarna does not know," another elder said, and all 
the villagers bobbed their heads in agreement.
    "He cannot know. If Tabarna knew, he would come to us. 
If he knew, he would help us. He would not let us suffer." 
A multitude of voices, all saying the same thing.
    A man named Tabarna had governed Efuan Pincar twenty 
years ago. Part priest, part prince, he'd been an able 
ruler. If the villagers' Tabarna were still the man Xantcha 
remembered, though, he'd be well past his prime, and 
beloved or not, someone would be taking advantage of him. 
Usually, that someone would be a man dressed as she was 
dressed, in fine clothes and with a good steel sword slung 
below his hip. Xantcha couldn't ask too many questions, not 
without compromising her disguise, but she promised to 
deliver the villagers' message. Red-Stripes and Shratta 
were terrorizing the countryside.
    The village offered to give her a swaybacked horse for 
her journey. Xantcha bought it instead with a worn silver 
coin and left the next day, before her debts grew any 
higher. The elders apologized that they couldn't offer her 
the escort a young nobleman deserved, but all their young 
men were gone, swept up by one side or the other.
    As she rode away, Xantcha couldn't guess how the 
Shratta had gotten involved in a war. Twenty years ago, the 
Shratta had been a harmless sect of ascetics and fools. 
They preached that anyone who did not live by the two 
hundred and fifty-six rules in Avohir's holy book was 
damned, but no one had taken them seriously. She had no 
idea who or what the Red-Stripes were until she'd visited a 
few more villages. The Red-Stripes had begun as royal 
mercenaries, charged with the protection of the palaces and 
temples that the suddenly militant Shratta had begun 
threatening, some fifteen years ago.
    Oddly enough, in none of the tales Xantcha listened to 
did she hear of the two groups confronting each other. 
Instead, they roamed the countryside, searching out each 
others' partisans, making accusations when nothing could be 
proved, then killing the accused and burning their homes.
    "The Shratta," a weary villager explained, "tell us 
they are the wrath of Avohir and they punish us if we do 
not live closely by Avohir's holy book. Then, after the 
Shratta have finished with us, the Red-Stripes come. They 
see that the Shratta didn't take everything, so they take 
what's left."
    "Every spring, it begins again," one of the old women 
added. "Soon there will be nothing left."
    "Twice we sent men to Tabarna, twice they did not come 
back. We have no men left."
    Then, as in the other villages, the survivors asked 
Xantcha to carry their despair to Tabarna's ear. She 
nodded, accepted their food, and left on her swaybacked 
horse, knowing that there was nothing she could do. Her 
path would not take her to Pincar City, Tabarna's north 
coast capital. She'd begun to doubt that it would take her 
to a suitable Mishra either. With or without pitched 
battles, Efuan Pincar had been at war for nearly a decade, 
and young men were in short supply.
    Xantcha's path-a rutted dirt trail because her sphere 
wouldn't accommodate a horse-took her toward Medran, a 
market town. A brace of gate guards greeted her with hands 
on their sword hilts and contempt in their eyes: Where had 
she been? How did a noble lad with fine boots and a sword 
come to be riding a swaybacked nag?
    Xantcha noticed that their tunics were hemmed with a 
stripe of bright red wool. She told them how she'd ridden 
into the countryside with older, more experienced 
relatives. They'd been beset by the Shratta, and she was 
the sole survivor, headed back to Pincar City.
    "On a better horse, if there's one to be found."
    Xantcha sniffed loudly; when it came to contempt, she'd 
learned all the tricks before the first boatload of 
refugees struck the Efuan Pincar shore. She'd also yawned 
out her armor before she'd ridden up to the gate. The Red-
Stripes were in for a surprise if they drew their swords 
against her.
    Good sense prevailed. They let her pass, though Xantcha 
figured to keep an eye for her back. Even with a sword, a 
slight, beardless youth in too-fine clothes was a tempting 
target, especially when the nearest protectors were also 
the likeliest predators.
    Xantcha followed the widening streets until they 
brought her to a plaza, where artisans and farmers hawked 
produce from wagons. She gave the horse to the farmer with 
the largest wagon in exchange for black bread and dried 
fruit. He asked how an unbearded swordsman came to be 
peddling a nag in Medran-town. Xantcha recited her made-up 
tale. The farmer wasn't surprised that Shratta would have 
slain her purported companions.
    "The more wealth a man has, the less the Shratta 
believe him when he says he abides by the book. Strange, 
though, that they'd risk a party as large as the one your 
uncle had assembled. Were me, I'd suspect the men he'd 
hired weren't what they'd said they were."
    Xantcha shrugged cautiously. "I'm sure my uncle thought 
the same . . . before they killed him." Then, because the 
farmer seemed more world-wise than the villagers, she 
tempted him with a thought that had nagged her from the 
beginning. "He'd hired Red-Stripes. Thought it would keep 
us safe. Shratta never attack men with Red Stripes on their 
tunics."
    The farmer took her bait, but not quite the way she 
expected. "The Red-Stripes don't bother the Shratta where 
they live, and the Shratta usually return the favor. But 
where there's wealth to be taken, every man's a target, 
especially to the . . ." He fingered the hem of his own 
tunic. "I won't speak ill of your dead, but it's a fool who 
trusts in stripes or colors."
    Xantcha walked away from the wagon, thinking that it 
might be better to get out of Medran immediately. She was 
headed toward a different gate than the one she'd entered 
when she spotted a knot of men and women, huddled in the 
shade of a tavern. With a second glance Xantcha saw the 
bonds at their necks, wrists, and ankles. Prisoners, she 
thought, then corrected herself, slaves.
    She hadn't seen slaves the last time she visited Efuan 
Pincar, nor had she seen any in the beleaguered villages, 
but it was a rare realm, a rarer world that didn't 
cultivate slavery in one of its many forms. Xantcha took a 
breath and kept walking. She could see that a swaybacked 
horse found a good home, but there was nothing she could do 
for the slaves.
    Xantcha continued walking, one step, another . . . 
misery stopped her before she took a third. Looking back 
over her shoulder, she caught the eyes of a slave who 
stared at her as if his condition were indeed her 
responsibility. Though they were at least a hundred paces 
apart, Xantcha saw that the slave was a dark-haired young 
man.
    I asked my husband's brother how he'd come to lead the 
Fallaji horde, Kayla had written in The Antiquity Wars. 
Mishra replied that he was their slave, not their leader. 
He laughed and added that I, too, was a slave to my people, 
but his eyes were haunted as he laughed, and there were 
scars around his wrists.
    In all the times Xantcha had read that passage, she'd 
followed Una's lead and blamed Phyrexia for Mishra's scars 
and bitterness. But the Fallaji had been a slave-keeping 
folk, and looking across the Medran plaza, Xantcha suddenly 
believed that Mishra had told Kayla a simple, unvarnished 
truth.
    Xantcha believed as well that she'd found her Mishra. 
With Urza's armor still around her, she strode over to the 
tavern.
    "Are they spoken for?" she asked the only unchained man 
she saw, a balding man with a eunuch's unfinished face.
    He wasn't in charge, but after a bow he scurried into 
the tavern to fetch his master, who proved to be a giant of 
a woman, garbed, like Xantcha, in men's clothing, though in 
the slave master's case, the effect was intimidation rather 
than disguise.
    "They're bound for Almaaz," the slave master said. Her 
breath was thick with beer, but she wasn't nearly drunk. 
"You know it's against the law to sell flesh here."
    By her posture, the slaver was right about the law and 
ripe for negotiation.
    "I have Morvern gold," Xantcha said, which was true 
enough; money was never a problem for a planeswalker or his 
companion.
    The slave master hawked and spat. "Mug's getting warm."
    Xantcha thought fast. "For ransom, then. I recognize a 
distant cousin in your coffle. You've kept him safe, no 
doubt. I'll pay you for your trouble and take him off your 
hands."
    "Him!" The slaver laughed until she belched.
    There were women in the slave string, and Xantcha was 
disguised as a young and presumably curious man.
    "A cousin," Xantcha repeated, showing more anxiety than 
she felt. Let the slaver laugh and think what she wanted. 
Xantcha had the other woman's attention, and she'd have the 
slave, too. "For ransom." She unslung her purse and fished 
out a gold coin as big as her nose.
    "Five of those," the slaver said, smashing her open 
hand between Xantcha's shoulder blades. "For ransom!"
    If she were truly in the market for a slave, Xantcha 
would have protested that no one was worth five golden 
nari, but she'd been prepared to split twelve of the heavy 
Morvern coins between a likely youth and his family. She 
dug out another four and handed them over to the slaver, 
who bit each one. Xantcha knew the coins were true but was 
relieved when they passed the slaver's test.
    "Which one's your cousin?"
    Xantcha pointed to the dark-haired youth, who didn't 
blink under scrutiny. The slaver, whose eyebrows remained 
resolutely skeptical, shook her head.
    "Pick another relative, boy. That one will eat you 
alive."
    "Blood's blood," Xantcha insisted, "and ours is the 
same. I won't leave with another."
    "Garve!" the slaver shouted the eunuch to her side. She 
held out her hand, and Garve surrendered a slender black 
rod. The slaver took it and turned back to Xantcha. 
"Another nari. You're going to need this."
    Would ancient Ashnod be pleased by the all the 
improvements Dominarian slavers and torturers had brought 
to her pain-inflicting artifacts in the centuries since her 
death? Xantcha bought the thing, if only to keep the slaver 
or Garve from ever using it again.
    "Cut him out," the slaver told Garve and added, while 
Garve walked among the slaves, "Have fun, boy."
    "I intend to," Xantcha assured her, then watched as 
Garve seized the leather band around the youth's neck and 
jerked him roughly to his feet.
    Garve gave the band a vicious twist, so it choked the 
youth and kept him quiet while the eunuch snapped the 
rivets that bound
    Xantcha's new slave to the others. The youth's face 
became red. His eyes rolled.
    "I want him alive," Xantcha warned in a low voice, that 
promised her threats were as good as her gold.
    Her new slave dropped to one knee when Garve suddenly 
released him. Hacking spittle, he got himself upright 
before the eunuch touched him again. Riveted leather 
manacles bound his wrists close behind his back; he 
couldn't clean his lightly bearded chin. A short iron chain 
ran between his ankles. He could walk, barely, but not run. 
As he came closer, watching his feet, Xantcha counted the 
sores and bruises she hadn't noticed while he was staring.
    Xantcha hadn't been comfortable owning a horse; she 
didn't know what she'd do with a slave. The thought of 
grabbing the arm's length of leather hanging from the band 
around his neck repelled her, though that was what 
everyone, including the youth, expected her to do.
    "You're too tall," she said at last, though he wasn't 
as tall as Urza. She hoped that wasn't going to be a 
problem further along in her plan. "You'll walk beside me 
until I can arrange something more. . . ." Xantcha paused. 
Phyrexians might not have imagination, but born-folk 
certainly did, and there was nothing like silence to 
inspire the use of it. "Something more appropriate."
    She smiled broadly, and her slave walked politely 
beside her, his chain clanking on the plaza's cobblestones. 
Xantcha's thoughts were focused on the how she'd get them 
both out of Median without attracting trouble from the Red-
Stripes. She wasn't expecting any other sort of trouble 
until the youth staggered against her.
    Muttering curses no Efuand had ever heard before, 
Xantcha got an arm around his waist and shoved him upright. 
It wasn't a hard shove, but he groaned and made no attempt 
to start walking again. Sick sweat bloomed on his face. 
He'd burned through his bravery.
    "Do you see that curb beside the fountain?"
    A slight nod and a catch in his muscles; he was dizzy 
and on the verge of fainting.
    "Get that far and you can sit, rest, drink some water."
    "Water," he repeated, a hoarse, painful-sounding 
whisper.
    Xantcha hoped his problems weren't serious. If Garve 
had damaged him, Garve wouldn't live to see the sun set. 
Her slave shoved one foot forward; she helped him with his 
balance. In five steps, Xantcha learned to hate that 
treacherous chain between his ankles. He fell one stride 
short of the fountain curb. Xantcha looked the other way 
while he dragged himself onto it. Then she drew a knife 
from the seam of her boot.
    The blade was tempered steel from another world, and it 
made fast work of the wrist manacles. Xantcha gasped when 
she saw rings of weeping sores. Without a second thought 
she hurled the slashed leather across the cobblestones. Her 
slave was already washing his face and slurping water from 
the fountain. Xantcha thought it was a good sign, but 
wasn't surprised when her next question, "Are you hungry?" 
won her nothing more than another cold, piercing stare.
    She retrieved a loaf of black bread, tore off a chunk, 
and offered it to him. He reached past her offering toward 
the loaf in her other hand.
    "You're bold for a slave."
    "You're small for a master," he countered and closed 
his hand over the bread he wanted.
    Xantcha dropped the smaller piece and seized his arm. 
She didn't like the feel of open sores beneath her fingers, 
and she had every intention of giving him the whole loaf 
eventually, but points had to be made. She tightened her 
grip. Appearances, her still nameless slave needed to 
learn, could be deceiving. In Phyrexia, newts were soft, 
useless creatures, but on most other worlds, Xantcha was as 
strong as a well-muscled man half again her size. With a 
groan, the slave let go of the larger portion, and when 
she'd released him, picked up the smaller portion from the 
ground.
    "Slowly," Xantcha chided him, though she knew it would 
be impossible for him to obey. "Swallow, breathe, take a 
sip of water."
    His hand shot out, while Xantcha wondered what she 
should do next. He captured the unguarded bread and held it 
tight. Only his eyes moved from Xantcha's face to the black 
prod she'd tucked through her belt.
    "Ask first," she suggested but made no move for her 
belt.
    Even if, by some miracle of carelessness, he stole the 
prod and struck her with it, Urza's armor would protect 
her.
    "Master, may I eat?"
    For a man still short of his final growth, Xantcha's 
slave had a mature grasp of sarcasm. He definitely had 
Mishra's attitude in addition to Mishra's appearance.
    "I didn't buy you to starve you."
    "Why did you, then?" he asked through a mouthful of 
bread.
    "I have need of a man like you."
    He gave Xantcha the same look the slaver and Garve had 
given her, and she began to think she'd gotten herself into 
the position of a fisherman who'd hooked a fish larger than 
his boat. Only time would tell if she'd bring him aboard or 
he'd drown her.
    "Your name will be Mishra. You will answer to it when 
you hear it."
    Mishra laughed, a short, snorting sound. "Oh, yes, 
Master Urza."
    Despite what she'd told Urza, the details of Kayla Bin-
Kroog's Antiquity Wars weren't that widely spread across 
what remained of Terisiare. Xantcha hadn't expected her 
slave to recognize his new name; nor was she prepared for 
his aggressive insolence. I've made a mistake, she told 
herself. I've done a terrible thing. Then Mishra started 
choking. He tugged on the tight leather band around his 
throat and managed to gulp down his mouthful of bread. His 
fingers came away stained with blood and pus.
    Xantcha looked at her own feet. She might have made a 
mistake, but she hadn't done anything terrible.
    "You may call me Xantcha. And when you meet him, Urza 
is just Urza. He would not like to be called Master, 
especially not by his brother."
    "Xantcha? What kind of name is that? If I'm Mishra and 
you work for Urza, shouldn't your name be Tawnos? You're a 
little bit small for the part. Grow out your hair and you 
could play Kayla-an ugly Kayla. By the love of Avohir, I 
was better off with Tuck-tah and Garve."
    "You know The Antiquity Wars?"
    "Surprised? I can read and write, too, and count 
without using my fingers." He held up his hand but saw 
something-the stains, perhaps, that she'd already noticed-
that cracked his insolence. "I wasn't born a slave," he 
concluded softly, staring across the plaza at his memories. 
"I had a life ... a name."
    "What name?"
    "Rat."
    "What?" she thought she'd misunderstood.
    "Rat. Short for Ratepe. I grew into it." Another 
snorted laugh-or maybe a strangled sob. Either way, it 
ended when the neck leather brought on another choking 
spell.
    "Hold still," Xantcha told him and drew out her knife 
again. "I don't want to cut you."
    There wasn't even a flicker of trust in Rat's eyes as 
she laid the blade against his neck. He winced as she slid 
it beneath the leather. She had to saw through the sweat-
hardened leather and pricked his skin a handful of times 
before she was done. The tip was bloody when it emerged on 
the other side, but he didn't make a grab for her or the 
weapon.
    "I'm sorry," she said when she was finished.
    Xantcha raised her arm to hurl the collar away as she'd 
hurled the manacles. Rat caught the trailing leash. The 
leather fell into his lap.
    "I'll keep it."
    Xantcha knew that in the usual order of such things, 
slaves didn't have personal property, but she wasn't about 
to take the filthy collar away from him. "I have a task for 
you," she said as he worried the collar between his hands. 
"I would have offered you the gold, if you'd been free. You 
will be free, I swear it, when you've done what I need you 
to do."
    "And if I don't?"
    While Xantcha wrestled with an answer for that 
question, a noisy claque of Red-Stripes entered the plaza 
from the east, the direction through which Xantcha had 
hoped to leave. She and
    Rat were far from alone on the cobblestones, and she 
reasonably hoped that despite their mismatched appearance-
him in rags and weeping sores, her with her boots and 
sword-they wouldn't draw too much attention. Rat saw the 
Red-Stripes as well. He snapped the leather against his 
thigh like a whip.
    Red-Stripes, Xantcha guessed, had something to do with 
his transformation from free to slave. Considering his 
apparent education and remembering the farmer's gesture, 
she wondered if he'd once worn the sort of garments she was 
wearing.
    "Hold it in," she advised him. "You've got a chain...." 
She left the thought incomplete as a gentle breeze brought 
her the last scent she ever wanted to smell: glistening 
oil.
    One of the Red-Stripes was a sleeper, a newt like her, 
but different, too. Newts of this new invasion had born-
folk ways and didn't clump together in cadres. In truth, 
they didn't seem to know they were Phyrexian. Xantcha 
didn't care to test her theory. She hunched on her knees as 
she sat, catching her breath in her hands, hiding the 
exhalations that might reveal her glistening scent. She 
couldn't relax or be too careful.
    Beside Xantcha, Rat beat a counterpoint of curses and 
leather. There was a chance that the Red-Stripe sleeper 
could hear every word.
    "Quiet!" Xantcha hissed a command as she clamped her 
hand over Rat's. "Quiet!" She squeezed until she felt the 
sores and sinews pop.
    "Afraid of the Red-Stripes?"
    She took a deep breath and admitted, "They're not my 
friends. Quiet!"
    Rat bent over to match her posture, blocking her view 
as well. He wouldn't stop talking. "And who are your 
friends-the Shratta? You keep strange company: Urza, 
Mishra, the Shratta. You're asking for trouble."
    Xantcha ignored him. She hunched lower until she could 
see beneath Rat's arms. The Red-Stripes were heading into 
the same tavern where the slaver drank. "We've got to 
leave. Can you walk?"
    "Why? I'm not afraid of the Red-Stripes. I'd join them 
right now, if they'd have me."
    The elders in the first village had warned Xantcha that 
the young men had chosen sides, one way or another. It 
figured that her Mishra would have Phyrexian inclinations. 
She didn't have time to persuade him, so she'd have to out-
bluff him. "Want to hobble over and try? You'd better 
hurry. Or do you think the eunuch's saved you a seat?"
    "I'm not that stupid. I lost my chance the moment I got 
sapped and sold."
    "Then stand up and start walking."
    "Yes, Master."
 
                        CHAPTER 5
 
    Bread, water, and the absence of tight leather around 
his neck worked swift wonders for Rat's stamina. He didn't 
need Xantcha's help as they walked away from the fountain, 
but his natural pride clashed with the chain between his 
ankles and guaranteed the sort of attention Xantcha 
preferred not to attract. They'd never get through the gate 
without an incident, so once they were clear of the plaza, 
she chose the narrowest street at each crossing until they 
came to a long-abandoned courtyard.
    "Good choice, Xantcha. The windows are mortared, the 
doors, too-except for the one we came in." Rat kicked at 
the rubble and picked up a bone that might have been a 
child's leg. "Been here before? Is this where you meet 
Urza?"
    Xantcha let the comment slide. "Put your foot up here." 
She pointed to an overturned pedestal. "I've got to get rid 
of that chain."
    "With what?" Rat approached the pedestal but kept both 
feet on the ground. "Garve's got the key."
    Xantcha hefted a chunk of granite. "I'll break it."
    "Not with that, you won't. I'll take my chances with 
Urza."
    She shook her head. "We've got four days' traveling 
before then. Waste not, want not, Rat-you can't run. You're 
helpless."
    He didn't argue and didn't put his foot on the 
pedestal, either.
    "Do you prefer being chained and hobbled like an 
animal?"
    "I'm your slave. You bought me. Better keep me hobbled 
and helpless, if you want to keep me at all."
    "I need a man who can play Mishra's part with Urza. I 
give you my word, play the part and you'll be free in a 
year." Free to tell Urza's secrets to the Red-Stripes? 
Never. But that was a worry for the future. For the 
present, "Give me your word."
    "The word of a slave," Rat interrupted. "Remember 
that." He put his foot on the pedestal. "And be careful."
    Xantcha brought the stone down with a crash that was 
louder than she'd expected, less effective, too. Perhaps it 
would be better to wait. Unfettering a youth who looked 
like Mishra might be all that Urza needed to free himself 
from the past.
    And maybe they'd have to run from the Red-Stripes.
    Xantcha understood how Urza must have felt when they 
traveled, worried about a companion who couldn't take care 
of herself; angry and bitter, too. She smashed the granite 
against the chain. Sparks flew, but the links didn't. 
Gritting her teeth, Xantcha pounded rapidly but to no 
greater success. When she paused for breath, Rat seized her 
wrists.
    "Don't act the fool."
    She could have dropped the stone on his foot and used 
both hands to throttle his insolence, and Xantcha might 
have, if she hadn't been so astonished to feel his warm, 
living flesh against hers. She and Urza touched each other, 
casually, but infrequently, and never with particular 
passion. Rat's hands shook as he held her, probably because 
slavery had weakened him, but there was something more, 
something elusive and unnerving. Xantcha was relieved that 
he released her the instant their eyes met.
    "I'm trying to help you," she said acidly.
    "You're not helping, you're just making noise. Noise is 
bad, if you're trying to hide. For that matter, why are we 
hiding? It's not as if Tucktah's going to tell the Red-
Stripes I'm not your ransomed cousin."
    "Just trying to keep you out of trouble."
    Rat laughed. "You're too late for that, Xantcha. Now, 
why don't we stop playing child's games and go to your 
father's house? If Tabarna's laws still mean anything in 
this forsaken town, it's illegal for one Efuand to own 
another. You're the one who's in trouble for wasting your 
father's gold. You paid way too much to ransom me. Is your 
father a tyrant or can he be reasoned with?"
    Given her disguise, Rat's presumptions weren't 
unreasonable. "I don't have a father. I don't live in this 
town. I live with Urza and we've got a long-" she 
considered telling him about the sphere and decided not to, 
"journey and since I have your word ..." She brought the 
stone down on the metal.
    "You'll be at that all afternoon and halfway through 
the night."
    Xantcha shrugged. They couldn't leave before then, not 
if she were going to use the sphere to get them over the 
walls. She smashed the stone again. A flake of granite drew 
blood from Rat's shin; the link was unharmed.
    Rat rubbed the wound and lowered his leg. "All right. I 
don't believe you, but if you're determined to play your 
game to its end, there's an easier way to get out of this 
town. Do you have any money left?" Xantcha didn't answer, 
but Rat had seen her purse and presumably knew it wasn't 
empty. "Look, go back to the plaza and pay some farmer to 
load me in his wagon ... or, better, find a smith with a 
decent hammer and chisel. Get these damn things off the 
same way they got put on."
    With sleepers in the town, Xantcha didn't want to go 
looking for strangers, but there was one farmer in the 
plaza market who wasn't a stranger.
    "I gave my horse to a fanner with a wagon-"
    "You had a horse!?"
    "I had no further need of it, so I gave it to a man who 
did and promised to care for it."
    "Avohir's mercy, you had no need of a horse, so you 
gave it away. You didn't even bargain with Tucktah." He 
swore again. "I've been sold by a beast to a madman! No, a 
mad child. Doesn't you father usually keep you locked up?"
    "I could sell you back," Xantcha said coldly. "I 
imagine you had a long and pleasant life ahead of you."
    She started to retrace their route. Rat followed as 
quietly as he could with the chain dragging on the ground. 
Once they were back in the plaza, Xantcha told him to wait 
in the shadows while she negotiated with the farmer. He 
agreed, but measured every wall with his eyes and twisted 
each battered link, in the obvious hope that she'd weakened 
it, as soon as he thought she couldn't see him.
    Well, he'd warned her what his word was worth.
    When Xantcha pointed him out to the farmer, he wanted 
no part of her plan.
    "I'll give you your horse back."
    "A horse is no use to a slave with a chain between his 
ankles."
    "Imagine if you set the slave free, he'd be willing to 
travel with you," the farmer countered, still skeptical.
    "I forgot to buy the key to his chains."
    The farmer hesitated. The slaver and her coffle had 
moved on, but the farmer had glanced toward the tavern when 
Xantcha had mentioned slaves. Likely he'd watched the whole 
scene with her, the slaver, Garve, and Rat.
    "Have him come over, and I'll speak to him myself. 
Alone."
    Moments later, Xantcha told Rat, "It's your choice. He 
wants to know if you're worth the risk."
    Rat gave Xantcha a look that said liar, and got to his 
feet. Xantcha blocked his path.
    "Look, I didn't tell him the truth about Una or Mishra 
or anything like that, just that we were cousins. And 
before, when I gave him the horse, I told him that I was 
alone because I'd been traveling with my uncle. We'd been 
ambushed by Shratta and everybody but me had been killed. 
It was good enough at the time, before I'd spotted you, but 
it's going to make things more difficult now."
    Rat frowned and shook his head. "If I was as dumb as 
you, I'd've died before I learned to walk. What names did 
you give him?"
    "None," Xantcha replied. "He didn't ask."
    "You need a keeper, Xantcha," Rat muttered as he walked 
away from her. "You haven't got the sense Avohir gives to 
ants and worms."
    Rat could have run, or tried to, but chose to get out 
of the town instead. The farmer waved for Xantcha to join 
them.
    "Not saying I believe you, either of you," he said, 
offering Xantcha his plain woven cloak to wear instead of 
her fancier one. "Climb in quickly now. These are strange 
times . . . bad times. A man doesn't put his trust in 
words; I put mine in Avohir. I'll get you out of Medran, 
and Avohir be my judge if I'm wrong."
    Xantcha considered stowing her sword in the wagon bed 
where Rat rode, with straw and empty baskets piled all 
around him to hide the chain. But her slave had a flair for 
storytelling. His imagination made her nervous.
    "You're not wrong, good man," Rat said cheerfully as he 
rearranged the baskets. "Not about my cousin and me, not 
about the times, either. Two months ago, I had everything. 
Then one night I went carousing with friends who weren't 
friends and lost it all. Woke up in chains. I told them who 
I was: Ratepe, eldest son of Mideah from Pincar City, and 
said my father would ransom me; got a swift kick and a 
broken rib. I'd given up hope months ago, but I hadn't 
reckoned on my cousin, Arnuwan."
    Xantcha jumped when Rat slapped her between the 
shoulders. Arnuwan was probably a less conspicuously 
foreign name than Xantcha, and the moment Rat introduced 
it, the farmer relaxed and offered his.
    "Assor," he said and embraced Rat, not her.
    Xantcha was used to following someone else. She'd 
followed Urza for over three thousand years, but Rat was 
different. Rat smiled and told Assor easy tales of pranks 
he and Arnuwan had pulled on their elders. He was very 
persuasive. She would have believed him herself, if she 
hadn't known that she was supposed to be Arnuwan. Of 
course, maybe there was an Arnuwan, and maybe Rat's only 
lie was that he didn't look at her while he was spinning 
out his tales. Maybe he was harmless, but Xantcha, who was 
nowhere near as harmless as she pretended to be, hadn't 
survived Phyrexia, Urza, and countless other perils, by 
assuming that anything was harmless.
    She kept her sword close and palmed a few black-metal 
coins that hadn't come from any king or prince's mint. 
Then, as Assor called home to his harnessed horse, she 
settled in for the ride.
    Silence hung thick among them. Ordinary folk going 
about their late-afternoon affairs looked up as they 
passed. Xantcha could think of nothing to say except that 
she longed to be in the air, headed back to the cottage, 
neither of which were safe subjects for conversation.
    Then Rat asked the farmer, "Do you keep sheep in your 
fallows, or do you grow peas?" He followed that question 
with another and another until he'd lured the fanner into 
an animated discussion about the proper way to plow a 
field. The farmer favored straight furrows. Rat said a 
sunwise spiral toward the center was better. They were in 
mid-argument when the Red-Stripes waved the wagon through 
the gate.
    As they cleared the first rise beyond the town walls, 
even Assor realized what Rat had done and while Xantcha 
willed away her armor he asked:
    "Where are you from, lad? The truth ... no more of your 
lies. You're no one's cousin, and I'll wager you're no 
farmer either, despite your talk. You're too clever by half 
to be village-bred."
    Rat grinned and told a different story. "I read, once, 
how Hatu-san the Blind, had escaped from a besieged city by 
talking about the weather. It seemed worth trying."
    "Read about it, eh?" Assor asked before Xantcha could 
say that she'd never heard of Hatusan the Blind. "Then, for 
certain, you're no farmer. I've never seen a book but 
Avohir's holy book and I listen 'stead of read. Is your 
name truly Ratepe, eldest son of Mideah?"
    Xantcha was watching Rat closely from the corner of her 
eye. She caught him flinching as Assor sounded out his 
name. His rogue's grin vanished, replaced by an empty stare 
that looked at nothing and gave nothing away.
    "It is," he answered with a voice that was both deeper 
and younger than she'd heard from him before. "And Mideah, 
my father, was a farmer when he died-a good farmer who 
plowed his fields sunwise every spring and fall. But he was 
a lector of philosophy at Tabarna's school in Pincar City 
before the Shratta burnt it down. . . ."
    If Rat's second recounting of his life was more 
accurate than his first, he'd had a comfortable childhood 
and loving parents. But his cozy world had been overturned 
ten years ago when the Shratta swarmed the royal city, 
preaching that any knowledge that couldn't be read in 
Avohir's book wasn't knowledge at all. They had no use for 
libraries or schools, so they set them ablaze. Rat's father 
had been one of many who'd appealed to Tabarna for 
protection against the Shratta mobs, and to Tabarna's son, 
Catal, who funded the Red-Stripes to protect them. Then 
Catal died, poisoned by the Shratta, or so said the Red-
Stripes, who'd avenged his death. The city dissolved into 
carnage and riot.
    "We tried. Father grew a beard, Mother made jellies and 
sold them in the market. I stayed out of trouble-tried to 
stay out of trouble. But it wasn't any use. The Shratta 
knew our names. They caught my uncle-I called him my uncle, 
but he was only a friend, my father's closest friend. They 
drew his guts out through a hole in his belly, then they 
set fire to his house-after they'd locked his family 
inside. Our neighbors came to set our house ablaze, too. 
Father said that they were afraid of everything, ready to 
believe anything. He said it wasn't their fault, but that 
didn't stop the flames. We got away through a hole in the 
garden wall."
    Xantcha wanted to believe her slave. She'd been to 
Pincar City where simple houses, each with a tidy garden, 
packed the narrow streets. She could almost see a 
frightened family running through moonlight, though Rat 
hadn't said whether they'd left by day or night. That 
seemed to be Rat's charm, Rat's near-magic. When he took a 
deep breath and started talking, everything he said rang 
true.
    Mishra never stooped to flattery, Kayla Bin-Kroog had 
written nearly thirty-four hundred years earlier. He didn't 
have to. He had the gift of sincerity, and he was the most 
dangerous man I ever met.
    "We fled to Avular, where my mother had kin. From 
Avular, we went to Gam."
    Assor grunted; he'd heard of the place. "Good land for 
flocks and herding, not so good for grain-growing."
    "Not so good for city-bred boys, either," Rat added. 
"But the Shratta didn't bother us. At least they didn't 
bother us any more than they bothered everyone else. We 
paid their tithes and lived by the book and thought we were 
lucky."
    Xantcha clenched her teeth. In all the multiverse, 
there was no curse to compare with feeling lucky.
    "I'd taken two sheep to the next village, to a man who 
didn't need sheep, but he had a daughter. . . ." Rat almost 
smiled before his face hardened. "I missed the Shratta as I 
left, and it was over when I returned. All Gam was dead: 
butchered, the men with their throats slit, the women 
strangled with their skirts, the children with their skulls 
smashed against the walls. . . ." Rat's voice had 
flattened, as if he were reciting from a dull text, yet 
that lack of expression served to make his words all the 
more believable. "I found my father, my mother, my brother 
and sister. I shouldn't have looked. It would have been 
better not to know. Then I ran to the next village, but I 
was too late there as well. Everybody I knew was dead. I 
wanted to join them. I wanted to die, or join the Red-
Stripes, if I could get to Avular. I knew the way, but the 
slavers found me the second night."
    Either Rat told the painful truth or he was a stone-
cold liar. The farmer had no doubts. He cursed the Shratta, 
then the Red-Stripes, and having already heard Xantcha's 
false tale earlier in the day, invited them both into his 
family.
    Xantcha declined. "We have family awaiting us in the 
south." The wagon was rolling west. "It's time for us to 
take our leave. Past time ... we should have taken the last 
crossroads."
    Both Xantcha and the farmer looked to Rat, who 
hesitated before shucking off the straw and baskets that 
had concealed his fetters.
    "Good work," Xantcha whispered while the farmer 
scuttled about, filling one of the baskets with food.
    "He's a good man," said Rat.
    The farmer presented them with the basket before 
Xantcha could challenge her companion's resolve. Xantcha 
returned the homespun cloak.
    "Walk fast," he said, then remembered Rat's fetters. 
"Try. There's been no trouble this close to Medran, but we 
all lay close after sundown. The moon's waxed; there'll be 
light on the road.
    When you get south to Stezine, ask for Korde. He's the 
smith there. Tell him you rode with me, with Assor, his 
wife's brother-by-marriage. He'll break that chain on his 
anvil. Luck to you."
    Xantcha hoisted the basket and started walking, 
glancing back over her shoulder after every few steps.
    "He didn't believe you," Rat chided.
    "He didn't believe either of us."
    "He believed me because I told the truth."
    "So did I," Xantcha countered.
    Rat shook his head. "Not to me, you haven't. Urza, 
Mishra, dead uncles, and ransomed cousins. You're a lousy 
liar, Xantcha."
    She let the provocations pass. They walked until the 
wagon had rolled from sight, and then Xantcha stopped. She 
set down the basket and faced Rat with her fists on her 
hips.
    "I saved your life, Ratepe, that's no lie. All I've 
asked in return is that you help me with Urza. It doesn't 
matter if you believe me, so long as I can trust you."
    "You bought me. You can make me do what you ask, but 
I'll fight you, I swear it, every step of the way. That's 
what you can trust."
    "I ransomed you."
    "Ransom? Avohir's mercy, you said I was your cousin-do 
you think Tucktah believed that? You're a bold liar, 
Xantcha. That's not the same as a good one. Tucktah sold 
me, you bought me. I'm still a slave. Don't bother being 
kind. I won't love you, and I will escape."
    Xantcha sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically. Rat 
accepted the invitation by lunging for her throat. If it 
had been a fair fight, Xantcha would have gone down and 
stayed down. Rat's reach was half an arm longer than hers, 
and he weighed nearly twice as much. But Rat hadn't been 
fed enough to maintain the muscles on his long bones, and 
Xantcha was a Phyrexian newt. Urza said she was built like 
a cat or a serpent, slippery and supple, impossible to pin 
down or keep unbalanced.
    Rat had her on her back for a heartbeat before she 
threw him aside. While he rose slowly to his knees, Xantcha 
sprang to her feet. She snapped her fingers.
    "There . . . you're free. As simple as that. You're no 
longer a slave. I ask you to honor what I have given you, 
and help me with Urza. When you've done that, in a year, 
I'll return you to this place. I give you my word."
    "You're a moon cow, Xantcha. Your parts don't fit 
together: fine clothes, a sword, gold nari from Morvern, 
and this Urza of yours. Avohir's mercy-what do you take me 
for?"
    Rat tried to side step around her, but his fetters 
insured that his strides were shorter than hers. After a 
few more failed evasions, Xantcha seized his wrists.
    "You were going to die, Ratepe."
    "Maybe, maybe not-" Rat had the reach, the leverage to 
free himself, and as soon as he had an opportunity, he 
grabbed for the slave goad tucked in Xantcha's belt.
    "Throw it down," Xantcha warned. "I don't want to hurt 
you."
    Rat laughed and played his fingers over the rod's 
smooth black surface. A shimmering, yellow web sprang from 
its tip. "You can't hurt me. You can save yourself from 
getting hurt by dropping your purse and your sword on the 
ground, turning around, and following that wagon."
    Xantcha eyed the web. She could feel its power where 
she stood, but it had belonged to Garve. Tucktah wouldn't 
have given her dim assistant a goad that could seriously 
damage the merchandise. With a frustrated sigh, she gave 
Rat one last chance. "You owe me your life. Make peace with 
me and be done with it."
    Rat rushed her, raising his arm for a mighty blow that 
Xantcha easily eluded. She stomped one foot on his chain, 
then put her fist in his gut. He tried to move with the 
punch but lost his balance when the chain tightened. He 
fell hard, leading with his forehead and losing his grip on 
the slave goad. Xantcha grabbed the goad and broke it. 
Despite the numbing, yellow light that oozed over her arms, 
she hurled both pieces far into the brush beyond the road. 
She retrieved the farmer's basket.
    Rat had levered himself onto one elbow and was trying 
to rise further, when she shoved him onto his back again. 
She put the food basket on his stomach then knelt on his 
breastbone.
    "All right, you win. You're a slave, and you'll do what 
I tell you to do because I can make you."
    Xantcha inhaled deeply. She ran through her mnemonic 
rhyme, then she yawned. The sphere was invisible but not 
imperceptible. Rat screamed as it flowed around him.
    "Don't even think about trying to escape," Xantcha 
warned.
    Weight wasn't a problem. Xantcha could have carried a 
barrel of iron or lead back to the cottage. Size was 
another matter. The sphere grew until it was wide as her 
outstretched arms. Then it stiffened and began to rise. Rat 
panicked. The sphere lurched and shot up like an arrow, 
throwing them against each other, the basket, and the 
scabbard slung at Xantcha's side.
    There were too many things competing for Xantcha's 
attention. She eliminated the largest distraction by 
punching it in the gut. They were less than a man's height 
over the ground when she got everything steadied. Rat 
breathed noisily through his wide-open mouth, even after 
they'd begun to soar gently westward. He'd pressed himself 
against the bubble. His arms were sprawled, and his palms 
were flat against the sphere's inner curve. Nothing moved 
except his fingers, which clawed silently, compulsively: a 
cat steadying itself on glass.
    Xantcha tried to sort out the tangle of legs, cloak, 
and overturned basket at the bottom of the sphere, but her 
least move pushed her companion toward panic. A nearly full 
moon showed faintly above the eastern horizon; she'd 
planned to soar through well into the night. That would 
have been unspeakably cruel, and though she was tempted-her 
forearms ached where the slave-goad's sorcery had 
surrounded them-she resisted the temptation.
    The sphere swung like a falling leaf in the cooling 
night air- a pleasant, even relaxing movement for Xantcha, 
but sheer torture for Rat, who'd begun to pray between 
gasps. Xantcha guided them slowly to the ground near a 
twisting line of trees.
    She warned him, "Put your hands over your face now. The 
sphere's skin will collapse against you when it touches the 
ground. It vanishes more quickly than cobwebs in a flame, 
but for that moment when it covers your mouth and nose, 
you'll think you're suffocating."
    Rat moaned, which Xantcha took as a sign that he'd 
heard and understood, but he didn't take her advice. He 
clawed himself as he'd clawed the sphere. There were bloody 
streaks across his face before he calmed down.
    "There's a stream through the trees. Wash yourself. 
Drink. You'll feel better afterward." Xantcha stood over 
him, offering an arm up, which, predictably, he refused. 
She gave him a clear path to the stream and another 
warning: "Don't think about running." He was gone a long 
time. Xantcha might have worried that he'd thrown himself 
in if she hadn't been able to hear him heaving his guts 
out. She'd kindled a small fire before he returned- not 
something she usually did, but born-folk often found solace 
in the random patterns of flames against darkness. Rat was 
shivering and damp from the waist up when he returned.
    "You need clothes. Tomorrow, I'll keep an eye out for 
another town. Until then-" she offered her cloak.
    It might have been poison or sorcery by the way Rat 
stared at it, and he shrank a little when he finally took 
it.
    "Can you eat? You should try to eat. It's been a hard 
day for you. The bread's good and this other stuff-" she 
held up a long, hollow tube. "Looks like parchment, tastes 
like apricots."
    Another hesitation, but by the way he tore off and 
chewed through a finger's length of the tube, Xantcha 
guessed the sticky stuff might once have been one of his 
favorite treats.
    "There's more," she assured him, hoping food might be a 
bridge to peace between them.
    Rat set the apricot leather aside. "Who are you? What 
are you? The truth this time-like Assor said. Why me? Why 
did you buy me?" He took a deep breath. "Not that it 
matters. I've been as good as dead since the Shratta came."
    "I must be a lousy liar, Rat, because I haven't lied to 
you. I'm Xantcha. I need you because Urza needs to talk to 
his brother, and when I saw you among the other slaves 
outside the tavern, I saw Mishra."
    Rat stared at the flames. "Urra. Urza. You keep saying 
Urza. Do you mean the Urza? Urza the Artificer? The one who 
was born three thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven 
years ago? Avohir's sweet mercy, Xantcha, Urza's a legend. 
Even if he survived the sylex, he's been dead for thousands 
of years."
    "Maybe Urza is a legend, but he's certainly not dead. 
The sylex turned the Weakstone and the Mightstone into his 
eyes; don't look too closely at them when you meet him."
    "Thanks, I guess, for the warning, but I can't believe 
you. And if I could, it would only make it worse. If there 
were an Urza still alive he'd kill me once for reminding 
him of his brother and again because I'm not Mishra. I'm no 
great artificer, no great sorcerer, no great warrior. Sweet 
Avohir, I can't even fight you. The way you overpowered me 
and broke Tucktah's goad . . . and that sphere. That I 
don't understand at all. What are you, anyway? I mean, 
there are still artificers-not as good as Urza was supposed 
to have been, and not in Efuan Pincar, but Xantcha, that's 
not an Efuand name. Are you an artifact?"
    Of all the questions Rat might have asked, his last was 
one for which Xantcha had no ready answer. "I was neither 
made nor born. Urza found me, and I have stayed with him 
because he is . . ." She couldn't finish that thought but 
offered another instead: "Urza blames himself for his 
brother's death, the guilt still eats at his heart. He 
won't fight you, Rat."
    They both shivered, though the air was calm and warm 
around the little fire.
    Rat spoke first, softly. "I'd always thought the one 
good thing that came out of that war was that the brothers 
finally killed each other. If they hadn't, it never would 
have ended."
    "It was the wrong war, Rat. They shouldn't have fought 
each other. There was another enemy, the Phyrexians-"
    "Phyrexians? I've heard of them. Living artifacts or 
some such. Nasty beasts, but slow and stupid, too. Jarsyl 
wrote about them, after the war."
    Rat knew his history, as much of it as had been written 
down, errors and all. "They were there at the end of the 
war, maybe at the beginning-that's what Urza believes. They 
killed Mishra and turned him into one of their own; what 
Urza fought was a Phyrex-ian. He thinks if he'd known soon 
enough, he could have saved his brother and together they 
could have fought the Phyrexians."
    "So the man you call Urza thinks that he could have 
stopped the war." Rat stared at Xantcha across the fire. 
"What do you think?"
    He had Mishra's quick wit and perception.
    "The Phyrexians are back, Rat, and they're not slow or 
stupid. They're right here in Efuan Pincar. I could smell 
them in Medran. Urza's got the power to fight them, but he 
won't do anything until he's settled his guilt with 
Mishra."
    Rat swore and stared at the stars. "These Phyrexians . 
. . Tuck-tah and Garve?"
    "No, not them. They were with the Red-Stripes. I 
smelled them."
    He swore a second time. "I'd've been better off staying 
where I was."
 
                        CHAPTER 6
 
    They didn't talk much after that. Xantcha let the fire 
burn down, and Rat made no attempt to revive it, choosing 
instead to pull his borrowed cloak tight around his 
shoulders. As little as he seemed to want to talk, Rat 
seemed reluctant to give his body the rest it needed. Three 
times Xantcha watched him slump sideways only to jolt 
himself upright. Exhaustion won the fourth battle. His chin 
touched his chest, and his whole body curled forward. He'd 
find himself in a world of pain when he woke up.
    Xantcha touched Rat's arm gently and when that failed 
to rouse him, eased him to the ground, which was dry and no 
worse than wherever he might have slept last. He pulled his 
arms tight against his chest. Xantcha tried to straighten 
them but met resistance. His fists and jaw remained 
clenched even in sleep.
    She'd thought that kind of tension was unique to Urza, 
to Urza's madness, but perhaps Rat's conscience was equally 
guilt-wracked. Whatever lies he'd told her and Assor, he'd 
been through hard times. His stained and aromatic clothes 
had once been sturdy garments, cut and sewn so carefully 
that their seams still held. Not slave's clothing, no more 
than his shoes were a slave's shoes. They were missing 
their buckles and had been shredded where the fetters 
rubbed against them.
    If Xantcha were wiser in the ways of mortal misfortune, 
she might have read Rat's true history in the moonlight. 
Xantcha knew more about the unusual aspects of a hundred 
out-of-the-way worlds than she knew about ordinary life 
anywhere. The two and a half centuries she and Urza had 
spent in Dominaria was the most time she'd spent in any 
single place, and though she'd taught herself to read and 
traveled at every opportunity, all she'd really learned was 
the extent of her ignorance.
    Xantcha's day hadn't been so exhausting as Rat's. She 
could have stayed awake all night and perhaps tomorrow 
night, if there'd been any need. But the night was calm, 
and although Rat's plight proved that there were slavers 
loose in Efuan Pincar, tonight they were in empty country, 
far from towns or villages. Xantcha heard owls and other 
night birds. Earlier she'd heard a wild cat yowling, but 
nothing large, nothing to keep her from settling down near 
Rat's feet, one arm touching his chain so she'd know if he 
moved unwisely during the night.
    Were their positions reversed, Xantcha wouldn't have 
tried to escape. In her long experience, the unknown had 
never proven more hospitable than the known. She hadn't 
thought of escape in all the time she was a newt among 
Phyrexians, although that, she supposed, had been 
different. A better comparison might be her first encounter 
with Urza. . . .
 
                      * * * * *
 
    After Gix's excoriation, Xantcha had hidden among the 
Fourth Sphere gremlins, but they'd eventually betrayed her 
to the Fane of Flesh. The teacher-priests caught her and 
punished her and then sent her to the furnaces. Xantcha 
worked beside metal-sheathed stokers. The hot, acrid air 
had burned her lungs. She'd staggered under the impossible 
burdens they piled on her back. It was no secret, the 
remains of Gix's newts were to be used up as quickly as 
possible, but when Xantcha's strength gave out, it was a 
burnished stoker who stumbled over her fallen body and 
plunged into a crucible of molten brass.
    The fire-priests wouldn't have her after that, so the 
Fane sent Xantcha to the arena, where Phyrexian warriors 
honed their skills against engines and artifacts made in 
Phyrexia or creatures imported from other worlds. She was 
assigned tasks no warrior would have dared: feeding the 
creatures, repairing damaged engines, and destroying those 
artifacts the warriors had merely damaged. Her death had 
been expected, even anticipated, but when the fearsome 
wyverns with their fiery eyes and razor claws went on a 
rampage that reduced a hundred priests and warriors to oil-
caked rubble, Xantcha the newt had survived without a 
scratch.
    Since she wouldn't die and they'd failed to kill her, 
the planner-priests decided that Xantcha had the makings of 
a dodger.
    Before he'd closed his eyes in sleep, the Ineffable had 
decreed that Phyrexia must be relentless in its exploration 
of other worlds and in the exploitation of whatever useful 
materials, methods and artifacts that exploration 
uncovered. Exploration was the easy part. A compleat 
Phyrexian, sheathed in metal and bathed in glistening oil, 
was thorough and precise. It was incapable of boredom and, 
when ordered to examine everything, it did exactly that, as 
accurate at the end as it had been in the beginning.
    But confronted with something they'd never seen before, 
lesser Phyrexians often became confused, and through their 
rough bumbling they frequently destroyed not only 
themselves but whatever they'd been examining as well. It 
was an intolerable situation and necessitated an unpleasant 
solution. Whole colonies of gremlins were endured, even 
nurtured, for their canniness and spontaneity, but no 
gremlin was cannier than the remnants of Gix's newts; the 
ones that refused to die.
    There were twenty of them summoned to the fountain, as 
identical as ever. They couldn't drink the glistening oil, 
so they were bathed in it while rows and ranks of compleat 
Phyrexians watched in silence. A mobile planner-priest 
described their new destiny:
    Go forth with the diggers and the bearers. Gaze upon 
the creations of born minds. Decipher their secrets so that 
they may be exploited safely for the glory and dominion of 
Phyrexia.
    There'd been more. Compleat Phyrexians never suffered 
from fatigue during an endless oration. They had no tongues 
to turn thick or pasty from overuse. And, of course, they 
lacked imagination. Never mind that Urza ridiculed 
Xantcha's imagination; she had more than the rest of 
Phyrexia rolled together. Standing beside the fountain, 
slick with glistening oil, Xantcha had imagined a wondrous 
future.
    Her future began on a world whose name she had never 
known. Perhaps the searcher-priests had known its name when 
they came to investigate it, but once they discovered 
something useful to Phyrexia, the name of the place where 
they'd found it was of little importance to the team of 
diggers, bearers, and dodgers sent to exploit the 
discovery.
    Once the ambulator portals were configured, it didn't 
matter where a world truly lay. Just one step forward into 
the glassy black disk the searcher-priests unrolled across 
the ground and whoosh, the team was where it needed to be. 
When the team finished its work-usually an excavation and 
extraction-they'd pack everything up, stride into the 
ambulator's nether end (identical to the prime end, except 
that it lacked the small configuration panel) and whoosh, 
they were back where they started, waiting for the next 
assignment.
    The ambulators were horrible artifacts: suffocating, 
freezing, and endless, and a dodger's work was worse than 
cleaning up after the warriors. The chief digger would lead 
a newt, and a gremlin or two to whatever artifact had 
roused the searcher-priests' attention, then sit back at a 
safe distance while dodgers did the dangerous work. Much of 
what the teams excavated was abandoned weapons, frequently 
still primed and hair-triggered; the rest, while not 
intended as weapons, still had a tendency to explode.
    Xantcha quickly realized that gremlins weren't any more 
imaginative than Phyrexians. They were simply more 
expendable. That very first time outside the nether end of 
an ambulator, when she saw blue-gray gremlin hands reaching 
for the shiniest lever in sight, Xantcha had decided she'd 
work alone and thrust her knife through the gremlin's 
throat before his imagination got her killed. The diggers 
hadn't cared. They only cared that she found and 
disconnected the tiny wires between that lever and a 
throbbing crimson crystal deep within the artifact.
    After the bearers got the inert crystal back to 
Phyrexia, a herald had conducted Xantcha to one of the 
great obsidian Fanes of the First Sphere, where the 
planner-priests-second only to the demons in Phyrexia's 
complex hierarchy-interrogated her about the excavation and 
the insights that had inspired her as she disconnected the 
wires. They demanded that she attach the crystal to the 
immense body of one of the planners. Which Xantcha did, 
having no other alternative to obedience. No one was more 
surprised than Xantcha herself when both she and the 
planner survived.
    The herald gave her a cloak of golden mesh and a 
featureless mask before conducting her back to the Fourth 
Sphere. For the first time, Xantcha looked like a compleat 
Phyrexian-provided she stood still.
    Diggers and bearers had been compleated with scrap: 
bits of brass, copper, and tin. Their leather-patched 
joints leaked oil with every move. They were not pleased to 
have a gold-clad newt in their midst. Her life had never 
been gentle, but everything Xantcha had endured until then 
had derived from indifference. It wasn't until she'd been 
rewarded by the planners that she experienced personal 
hatred and cruelty.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Beneath Xantcha's arm, the iron chain shifted slightly. 
Her fingers clamped over the shifting links before her eyes 
were open, but the movement was merely Rat shifting in his 
sleep. A blanket of clouds had unfurled between them and 
the moon. The land had gone quiet; Xantcha sniffed for 
storms or worse and found the air as empty as before. She 
loosened her grip on the chain without releasing it 
completely.
    Rat would run. Though he remained fettered and had no 
hope of survival in the open country, he'd try to run as 
long as he believed freedom lay somewhere else.
    There was no word for freedom in Phyrexian. The only 
freedom a Phyrexian knew was the effortless movement of 
metal against metal when each piece was cushioned in 
glistening oil, and even that freedom was inaccessible to a 
flesh-bound newt. Battered and starved by the diggers who 
depended on her for their own survival, Xantcha had taken 
refuge in endurance. Though none of the worlds she'd 
visited matched the moist, green world of her dreams-in 
truth, Dominaria itself didn't match those dreams-the worst 
of them had been more hospitable than Phyrexia.
    And if perversity were a proper measure of 
accomplishment, then Xantcha took perverse pride in 
surmounting the challenge she found at the nether end of 
each ambulator portal. Once an artifact lay exposed in 
front of her, she'd forget the diggers' prejudice, the 
bearers' brutality. Every artifact was different, yet they 
were all the same, too, and if Xantcha studied them long 
enough-whether they'd been made by Urza, Phyrexia, or some 
nameless artificer on a nameless world-she'd eventually 
unravel their secrets.
    Xantcha would never be truly compleat, but she had 
achieved usefulness. She'd become a dodger, the fifth 
dodger, by virtue of the crimson sphere, which began a 
revolution in the way Phyrexia powered its largest non-
sentient artifacts. A few more finds and she'd become the 
second dodger, Orman'huzra, though in her thoughts she 
remained Xantcha. The teacher-priests were right about some 
things: Oix's newts were too old, too set to change.
    There was no Phyrexian word for happiness, and 
contentment meant glistening oil, yet as Orman'huzra, 
Xantcha found a measure of both. The others might despise 
her, but with her gold-mesh cloak she was untouchable. And 
they needed her. Within their carapaces, Phyrexians were 
alive; they understood death and feared it more than a newt 
did because without flesh, compleat Phyrexians could not 
heal themselves, and scrap-made Phyrexians were almost as 
expendable as newts.
    The next turning point in Xantcha's life came in the 
windswept mountains of a world with three small moons. The 
artifact was huge and ringed by the rotting flesh of the 
born-folk who'd died defending it. Countless hollow 
crystals, no two exactly alike, pierced its dark, 
convoluted surface. Flexible wires had sprouted among the 
crystals, each supporting a concave mirror.
    When the mirrors moved, sound and sometimes light 
emerged from the hollow crystals.
    The searcher-priests had been certain it was a weapon 
of unparalleled power.
    Disable it, the searcher had told her. Prepare it for 
bearing back to Phyrexia. Do not attempt to dismantle it. 
The born-folk fought hard. They could not defeat us, yet 
they did not retreat. They died to keep us from this 
artifact. Therefore we must have it, and auickly.
    Xantcha didn't need reasons. The artifact-any artifact-
was sufficient. Solving each artifact's mystery was all 
that mattered to her. What the priests did with her 
discoveries didn't concern her. From a newt's vulnerable 
perspective, a new weapon meant nothing. Everything in 
Phyrexia was already deadly.
    Ignoring the corpses, she'd approached the artifact as 
she'd approached all the others.
    But the wind-crystal, as she named it, wasn't a weapon. 
Its crystals and mirrors had no power except what they 
borrowed from the sun, moons, wind, and rain; then they 
gave it back as patterns of light and sound. The artifact 
reached deep into Xantcha's dreams, where it awakened the 
notions of beauty that couldn't be expressed in Phyrexian 
words.
    Xantcha refused to prepare the artifact as the 
searcher-priests had demanded. She told the diggers and 
bearers, It has no secrets, nothing that Phyrexia can use. 
It simply is, and it belongs here. She was Orman'huzra, and 
the immobile planner-priests of the First Sphere had given 
her a golden cloak. She'd thought her words would have 
weight with the scrappy diggers and bearers; and they had, 
in ways Xantcha hadn't imagined. They stripped away her 
golden cloak and beat her bloody. They destroyed the 
artifact, every crystal, every mirror. Then they told the 
searchers that Orman'huzra was to blame for the loss of a 
weapon that could reduce whole worlds to dust.
    Battered and scarcely conscious, Xantcha had been 
dragged to the brink of the very same fumarole where Gix 
had fallen to the Seventh Sphere. One push and life would 
have ended for her, but Xantcha was made of flesh and the 
planner-priests had believed that flesh could be punished 
until it transformed itself. From the fumarole Xantcha was 
taken to a cramped cell, where she dwelt in darkness for 
some small portion of eternity, sustained by memories of 
dancing light and music. When the priests thought she had 
suffered enough, they dragged her out again. The searchers 
had found another inscrutable artifact on another nameless 
world.
    Xantcha was Orman'huzra. She was still useful and she 
had the wit-the deceit-to grovel before the various 
priests, begging for her life on any terms they offered. 
They sent her back to work never guessing that a lowly 
newt, mourning the loss of beauty, had declared war on 
Phyrexia.
    The diggers suspected, but the great priests paid no 
more attention to diggers than they did to newts, and 
suspicion notwithstanding, diggers who worked with 
Orman'huzra lasted longer than those who didn't. As soon as 
she finished with one extraction, she'd find herself 
assigned to another team.
    Thirty artifacts and twenty-two worlds after being 
dragged out of her cell, Xantcha's war was going well. She 
hadn't destroyed every artifact they sent her to unravel, 
but she'd lost several and rigged several more so that the 
next Phyrexian who touched it never touched anything again. 
She grew quite pleased with herself.
    The diggers were already in place when Xantcha arrived, 
alone and nauseous from the ambulator trek, on her twenty-
third world. A rattling digger made of metal and leather, 
all of it slick with oil that stank rather than glistened, 
led her into a humid cave where rows of smoky meat-fat 
lanterns marked the excavation.
    "They might be Phyrexian," the digger said as they 
approached the main trench. At least, that's what Xantcha 
thought it had said. Its voice box worked no better than 
the rest of it.
    Xantcha peered into the trenches, into a pair of fire-
faceted eyes, each larger than her skull. She sat on her 
ankles, slowly absorbing what the searchers had found this 
time.
    "They might be Phyrexian," the digger repeated.
    Whatever the artifact was, it wasn't Phyrexian and 
neither were the ranks and rows of partially excavated 
specimens behind it. Phyrexians were useful. Tender-priests 
compleated newt-flesh according to its place in the 
Ineffable's plan, and then they stopped. Function was 
everything. These artifacts had no apparent function. They 
seemed, at first and second glance, to be statues: metal 
reproductions of the crawling insects that, like rats and 
buzzards, flourished everywhere, including Phyrexia. And 
though Xantcha had no liking for things that buzzed or 
stung, what she saw reminded her more of the long-destroyed 
wind-crystal than the digger beside her.
    "I am told to ask, what will you need to secure them 
for bearing?"
    Xantcha shook her head. Mostly the searcher-priests 
looked for sources of metal and oil because Phyrexia had 
none of its own; artifacts were a bonus, but the gems and 
precious metals that compleated the higher priests came to 
Phyrexia in the form of plunder.
    It didn't take Orman'huzra to secure plunder.
    There had to be more, and to find it Xantcha seized a 
lantern and leapt into the trench where the stronger but 
far less agile digger couldn't follow. At arm's length she 
realized that the insects were fully articulated. Whoever 
made them had meant them to move. She touched a golden 
plate; it was as warm as her own flesh and vibrated 
faintly.
    Forgetting the digger on the trench-rim, Xantcha ran to 
one of the second-rank artifacts. It, too, was warm and 
vibrating, but unlike the first artifact, it had a steel-
toothed mouth and steel claws-as nasty as any warrior's 
pincers-in addition to its golden carapace. On impulse, 
Xantcha tried to bend the raised edge of a golden plate.
    A long, segmented antenna whipped around Xantcha's arm 
and hurled her against the trench wall, but not before she 
had the answer she wanted. The plate hadn't bent. It looked 
like gold, but it was made from something much stronger. 
Xantcha had another, less wanted, answer too. The artifacts 
were aware, possibly sentient and at least partially 
powered.
    "Move! Move!" the rattletrap digger shrieked from the 
rim, less warning or concern for a damaged companion than a 
reaction to the unexpected.
    Sure enough a reeking handful of diggers and bearers 
came clattering, some through the trenches and others along 
the rim.
    One digger, in better repair than the rest, assumed 
command, demanding quiet from his peers and an explanation 
from Orman'huzra.
    "Simple enough. It moved and I didn't dodge."
    A cacophony of squeaks and trills echoed through the 
cave, as the diggers and bearers succumbed to laughter.
    The better-made digger whistled for silence. "They have 
not moved. They do not move."
    Xantcha displayed her welted arm. Sometimes, there was 
no arguing with flesh. Diggers did not have articulated 
faces, yet the chief digger contrived a worried look.
    "You will secure them," it said, a command, not a 
request.
    "I will need wire-" Xantcha began, then hesitated as 
half-formed plots competed in her head.
    The searchers must have known that the shiny insects 
were more than plunder but the diggers and bearers, despite 
their trench excavations, hadn't known the artifacts could 
move. She stared at the huge, faceted eyes, fiery in 
reflected lantern light. The insects weren't Phyrexian; 
perhaps they could be enlisted in her private war against 
Phyrexia, if she could get them through intact and without 
getting herself killed in the process.
    "Strong wire," she amended. "And cloth ... thick, heavy 
cloth. And food . . . something to eat and not reeking 
oil."
    "Cloths?" the digger whirled its mouth parts in 
confusion. Only newts, gremlins and the highest strata of 
priests draped their bodies in cloth.
    "Unmade clothes," Xantcha suggested. "Or soft leather. 
Something . . . anything so I can cover their eyes."
    The digger chattered to itself. The tender-priests 
could replace a newt's eyes, if its destiny called for a 
different sort of vision, but diggers had flesh-eyes within 
their immobile faces. This one had pale blue eyes that 
widened slowly with comprehension.
    "Diggers will find," it said, then spun its head around 
and issued commands to its peers in the rapid, compleat 
Phyrexian way that Xantcha could understand but never 
duplicate. Fully half of them rumbled immediately toward 
the cave's mouth. The chief digger turned back to Xantcha. 
"Orman'huzra, begin."
    And she did, walking the trenches, examining the insect 
artifacts already excavated. Xantcha counted the golden, 
humming creatures that were visible. She climbed out of the 
trenches and measured the rest of the dig site with her 
eyes. The cave could easily contain an army. Xantcha hadn't 
been on this world long enough to know the measure of its 
day, but it seemed safe to think that she'd need at least a 
local season, maybe a local year, to get her warriors ready 
for their war.
    Xantcha approached the golden swarm cautiously, 
starting with those she judged least likely to sever an arm 
or neck if she made a mistake-which she did several times 
before she learned what awakened them and what didn't. An 
isolated touch was more dangerous than a solid thwack to an 
armored underbelly, and they were much more sensitive to 
her flesh than to the diggers' shovel-hands.
    She foresaw problems inciting her army to fight back in 
Phyrexia and studied the artifacts by herself, whenever 
rain drove all but a few diggers and bearers to the shelter 
beside the ambulator. Rain, especially a cold, penetrating 
rain, was a poorly-compleated Phyrexian's greatest enemy. 
The bearers would retreat all the way to Phyrexia once a 
storm started. Xantcha could have won her private war with 
just a few of the mud-swirling, gully-washing deluges that 
threatened the artifact cave as the world's seasons 
progressed.
    Cold rain and mud weren't Xantcha's favorite conditions 
either. She commandeered pieces of the digger-scrounged 
cloth, which was, in fact, clothing for folk generally 
taller and broader than Xantcha herself. The garments were 
torn, often slashed, and always bloodstained. They rotted 
quickly in the wretched weather and when they grew too 
offensive, Xantcha would throw the cloth on her fire and 
find something fresh in the scrounge piles. Her need for 
Phyrexian vengeance hadn't led to any empathy for bom-folk.
    She successfully dismantled one of the smaller insect-
artifacts and learned enough of its secrets to feel 
confident that they would awaken, as soon as they emerged 
from the Phyrexian prime end of the ambulator. After that, 
it was simply a matter of folding their legs and antennae, 
binding them with cloth and wire, and ordering the bearers 
to stack them in pyramid layers near the nether end for 
eventual transfer to Phyrexia.
    It never occurred to her that the bearers would act on 
their own to carry the artifacts with them when they next 
escaped the rain, and by the time she realized that they 
had, it was already too late. There was a searcher-priest 
towering above the diggers and bearers.
    "Orman'huzra," the searcher-priest called in that 
menacing tone only high-ranking Phyrexians could achieve. 
"You were told to secure these artifacts for Phyrexia. You 
were warned that inefficiency would not be tolerated. You 
have failed in both regards. The artifacts you subverted 
were dismantled before they could cause any damage."
    The many-eyed searcher was between Xantcha and the cave 
mouth. There'd be no getting past it or getting through the 
massed diggers and bearers, if she'd been tempted to run, 
which she wasn't. Xantcha might dream of lush, green 
worlds, but she was Phyrexian, and though she'd learned how 
to declare war against her own kind, she hadn't learned how 
to disobey. When the priest called her forward, she threw 
down her tools and climbed out of the trench.
    Diggers and bearers formed a ring around her and the 
searcher-priest. They chittered among themselves. This time 
Orman'huzra had gone too far and would not survive the 
searcher-priest's wrath.
    "Dig," the searcher-priest commanded, and she 
understood what they intended for her.
    Xantcha dug the damp ground until she'd scratched out a 
shallow hole as wide as her shoulders and as long as she 
was tall. There was nothing worse than a too short, too 
narrow prison. Her fingers were numb and bloodied, but she 
clawed the ground until the searcher-priest grew impatient 
and ordered a digger to finish the job. When it was done, 
the hole tapered from shallow to waist-deep along its 
length and was exactly the length and width Xantcha had 
laid out.
    She'd been through this before and, with a sigh, jumped 
into the hole, her feet landing in the deeper end, ready to 
be buried alive.
    "Not yet," the searcher-priest said as a length of 
segmented wire unwound from its arm.
    Xantcha recognized it as the antenna from one of her 
insect warriors. She climbed out of the hole prepared for 
pain, prepared for death, because she was certain that the 
searcher-priest had lied. Only a few of her warriors had 
gotten to Phyrexia, and undoubtedly all of them had fallen 
by now, but at least one had done damage before it fell.
    That was victory enough, as Xantcha's wrists were bound 
by a length of wire slung over a tree limb to keep her 
upright during the coming ordeal. It had to be enough, as 
the first lash stroke of the antenna cut through her ragged 
clothing, and the second cut deep into her flesh.
    The diggers and bearers counted the strokes; lesser 
Phyrexians were very good at counting. Xantcha heard them 
count to twenty. After that, everything was blurred. She 
thought she heard the cry of forty and fifty, but that 
might have been a dream. She hoped it was a dream. Then it 
seemed that there was a stroke that didn't land on het and 
wasn't counted by the diggers and bearers. That, too, might 
have been a dream, except there were no strokes after that, 
and no one pushing her into what would almost certainly 
have been a permanent grave.
    Instead there was bright light and great noise.
    A storm, Xantcha thought slowly. Rain. Driving the 
diggers, bearers and even the searcher-priest to shelter. 
Her wounds had begun to hurt. Drowning would be a better, 
easier way to die.
    Without the diggers and bearers to do the counting, 
there was no way to measure the time she slumped beneath 
the tree limb, unable to stand or fall. In retrospect, it 
could not have been very long before she heard a voice 
speaking the language of her dreams, the language that had 
given her the words for beauty.
    Xantcha did notice that she didn't fall when her arms 
did and that the rain never fell.
    The voice filled her head with comforting sounds. Then 
a hand, that was both warm and soft like her own, touched 
her face and closed her eyes.
    When she awoke next, she was in a grave of pain and 
fire, but the voice was in her head telling her that fear 
was unnecessary, even harmful to her healing. She 
remembered her eyes and, opening them, looked upon a 
flaming specter with many-colored eyes. Xantcha thought of 
Gix, and for the first time in her life she fainted.
    The next time Xantcha awoke the pain and fire were 
gone. She was weak, but whole, and lying on softness such 
as she had not felt since leaving the vats. A man hovered 
beside her, staring into the distance. She had the strength 
for one word and chose it carefully.
    "Why?"
    His face, worried as he stared, turned grim when he 
looked down.
    "I thought the Phyrexians would kill you."
    Beyond doubt, he spoke the language of Xantcha's 
dreams, the language of the place where she had been 
destined to sleep. He knew the name of her place, too, and 
had correctly guessed that the Phyrexians meant to kill 
her, but he hadn't seemed to recognize that she was also 
Phyrexian. Waves of caution washed through Xantcha's 
weakened flesh. She fought to hide her shivering.
    A piece of cloth covered her. He pulled it back, 
revealing her naked flesh. His frown deepened.
    "I thought they'd captured you. I thought they would 
change you, as they changed my brother. But I was too late. 
You bled. There is no metal or oil beneath your skin, but 
they'd already made you one of them. Do you remember who 
you were, child? Why did they take you? Did you belong to a 
prominent family? Where were you born?"
    She took a deep breath. Honesty, under the present 
circumstances seemed the best course, as it had been with 
Gix, for surely this man was a demon. And, just as surely, 
he was already at war with Phyrexia. "I was not born, I 
have no family and I was never a child. I am the 
Orman'huzra who calls herself Xantcha. I am Phyrexian; I 
belong to Phyrexia."
    He made white-knuckled fists above Xantcha's face. She 
closed her eyes, lacking the strength for any other 
defense, but the blows didn't fall.
    "Listen to me closely, Xantcha. You belong to me, now. 
After what was done to you, for whatever reason it was 
done, you have no cause for love or loyalty to Phyrexia, 
and if you're clever, you'll tell me everything you know, 
starting with how you and the others planned to get home."
    Xantcha was clever. Gix himself had conceded that. She 
was clever enough to realize that this yellow-haired man 
was both more and less than he seemed. She measured her 
words carefully. "There is a shelter at the bottom of the 
hill. Take me there. I will show you the way to Phyrexia."
 
                        CHAPTER 7
 
    "Wake up!"
    Words and jostling ended Xantcha's sleep so thoroughly 
that for a heartbeat she neither knew where she was nor 
what she'd been dreaming. In short order she recognized Rat 
and the streamside grove where she'd fallen asleep, both 
awash in morning light, but the dreams remained lost. She 
hadn't intended to fall deeply asleep and was angry with 
herself for that error and surprised to find Rat clinging 
to her forearm.
    He retreated when she glowered.
    "You had a nightmare."
    Images shook out of Xantcha's memory: the damp world of 
insect artifacts, her last beating at Phyrexian hands, Urza 
hurling fire and sorcery to rescue her. Those were moments 
of her life that Xantcha would rather not dream about. 
Between them and anger, she was in a sour mood.
    "You didn't take advantage?" she demanded.
    Rat answered, "I considered it," without hesitation. 
"All night I considered it, but I'm a long way from 
anywhere, I've got a chain between my feet, and even though 
you may be stronger than me and have that thing that makes 
us fly, you're still a boy. You need someone to take care 
of you."
    "Me? I need someone to take care of me?" Of all the 
reasons she could think of to find herself in possession of 
a slave, that was the last she'd expected. "What about your 
word?"
    He shrugged. "I've had a night to think about it. When 
I woke up ... at first I thought you were pretending to be 
asleep, waiting for me to run. But if I were going to run-
walk-" Rat rattled the chain. "I'd have to make sure you 
couldn't catch me again."
    "What were you going to do? Strangle me? Bash my head?"
    Another shrug. "I didn't get that far. You started 
having your nightmare. It looked like a bad one, so I woke 
you-you don't believe that Shratta nonsense about dreams 
and your soul?"
    "No." Xantcha knew little about the Shratta's beliefs, 
except that they were violently intolerant of everyone 
else's. Besides, Urza had said she'd lost her soul in the 
vats.
    "Then why are you so cross-grained? I'm still here, and 
you're not dreaming a miserable dream."
    Xantcha stretched herself upright. Assor's basket was 
where she'd left it, exactly as she left it, not a crumb 
unaccounted for. She separated another meal and tossed Rat 
a warning along with his bread.
    "I don't need anyone taking care of me. Don't want it 
either. When we get to the cottage, your name becomes 
Mishra, and Urza's the one who needs your help."
    Rat grunted. Xantcha expected something more, but it 
seemed that he'd discovered the virtues of silence and 
obedience, at least until she told him to sit beside her.
    "There's no other way?" he asked, turning pale. "Can't 
we walk? Even with the chain, I'd rather walk."
    Xantcha shook her head and Rat bolted for the bushes. 
After trying unsuccessfully to turn himself inside out and 
wasting his breakfast, Rat crawled back to her side.
    "I'm ready now."
    "I've never fallen from the sky, Rat. Never come close. 
You're safer than you'd be in a wagon or walking on your 
own two feet."
    "Can't help it-" Rat began then froze completely as 
Xantcha yawned and the sphere spread from her open mouth.
    He started for the bushes again. Knowing that his gut 
was empty and that she'd be the one who'd be vomiting if 
she had to bite off the sphere before it was finished, 
Xantcha grabbed the back of Rat's neck and held his head in 
her lap until the sphere was rising.
    "The worst is over. Sit up. Don't think so much. 
There's always something to see. Watch the clouds, the 
ground."
    Ground was the wrong word. Cursing feebly, Rat clung to 
her for dear life. If he couldn't relax, it was going to be 
a painful journey for both of them. Xantcha tried sympathy.
    "Talk to me, Rat. Tell me why you're so afraid. Put 
your fears into words."
    But he couldn't be reassured, so Xantcha tried a less 
gentle approach. Freeing one arm, she set the sphere 
tumbling, then yelled louder than his moans:
    "I said, talk to me, Rat. You're giving in to fear, 
Rat." She thought of her feet touching ground, and the 
sphere plummeted; she thought of playing among the clouds 
and the sphere rebounded at a truly dizzying speed. "You 
haven't begun to know fear. Now, talk to me! Why are you 
afraid?"
    Rat screamed, "It's wrong! It's all wrong. I can feel 
the sky watching me, waiting. Waiting for a chance to throw 
me down!"
    He was sobbing, but his death grip loosened as soon as 
the words were out of his mouth.
    Xantcha diumped Rat soundly between the shoulders. "I 
won't let the sky have you."
    "Doesn't matter. It knows I'm here. Knows I don't 
belong. It's waiting."
    She thumped him again. Rat's complaint was too much 
like her own in the early days, when Urza would drag her 
between-worlds. Urza had the planeswalker spark; the 
fathomless stuff between the multiverse's countless world-
planes bent to his will. Xantcha had been, and remained, an 
unwelcome interloper. The instant the between-worlds furled 
around her, she could hear the vast multi-verse sucking its 
breath, preparing to spit her out.
    The planeswalker spark was something a mind either had, 
or didn't have. Xantcha didn't have it; Urza couldn't share 
his. The cyst was the only stopgap that he'd been able to 
devise. It didn't leave Xantcha feeling any less like an 
interloper, but it did give promise that she'd be alive 
when the multiverse spat her out. She'd ask Urza to implant 
a cyst in Rat's belly-in Mishra's belly-but until then, 
there was nothing she could do except keep him talking.
    The sky above Efuan Pincar wasn't nearly as hostile as 
the between-worlds. There was a chance he'd talk himself 
out of his fears. She nudged him into another telling of 
his life story. The details differed from the second tale 
he'd told in Assor's wagon, but the overall spirit hadn't 
changed. When he came to the part where he'd found 
religious denunciations written in blood on the walls of 
his family's home, the intensity of his feelings forced Rat 
to sit straight and speak in a firm, steady voice.
    "If the Shratta are men of Avohir, then I spit on 
Avohir. Better to be damned than live in the Shratta's 
fist."
    That was the sort of fatal, futile sentiment that 
Xantcha understood, but she was less pleased to hear Rat 
declare, "When your Urza's done with me, I'll make my way 
to Pincar City and join the Red-Stripes. They've got the 
right idea: kill the Shratta. There's no other way. They'd 
sooner die than admit they're wrong, so let them die."
    "There are Phyrexians among the Red-Stripes," Xantcha 
warned. "They're a much worse enemy than any Shratta."
    "They're not my enemy, not if they're fighting the 
Shratta."
    "Mishra may have thought the same thing, but it is not 
so simple. Flesh cannot trust them, because Phyrexia will 
never see flesh as anything but a mistake to be erased."
    Rat watched her quietly.
    "Flesh. We're flesh, you and I," Xantcha pinched the 
skin on her arm, "but Phyrexians aren't. They're artifacts. 
Like Urza's, during the Brothers' War . . . only, 
Phyrexians aren't artifacts. Their flesh has been replaced 
with other things, mostly metal, according to the 
Ineffable's plan. Their blood's been replaced with 
glistening oil. So it should be. Blood cannot trust 
Phyrexians because blood is a mistake."
    His eyes had narrowed. They studied a place far beyond
    Xantcha's shoulder. Urza talked about thinking, but he 
rarely did it. Urza either solved his problems instantly, 
without thinking, or he sank in the mire of obsession. Rat 
was changing his mind while he thought. Xantcha found the 
process unnerving to watch.
    She spoke quickly, to conceal her own discomfort. 
"Flesh, blood, meat-what does it matter? Phyrexia is your 
enemy, Rat. The Brothers' War was just the beginning of 
what Phyrexia will do to all of Dominaria, if it can. There 
are Phyrexians in the Red-Stripes, and you'd be wiser, far 
wiser, to join the Shratta in the fight against them."
    "It's just . . ." Rat was thinking even as he talked. 
His mind changed again and he met Xantcha's eyes with an 
almost physical force. "You said you smelled Phyrexians 
among the Red-Stripes. My nose is as good as my eyes, and I 
didn't smell anything at all. You said 'flesh cannot trust 
them,' but everybody was flesh, even Tucktah and Garve. On 
top of all, your talk about me pretending to be Mishra, for 
someone you call Urza. Something's not true, here."
    "Do you think I'm lying?" Xantcha was genuinely 
curious.
    "Whatever you smelled back in Medran, it scared you, 
because it was Phyrexian, not because it was Red-Stripe. 
So, I guess you're telling the truth, just not all of it. 
Maybe we're both flesh, Xantcha, but, Avohir's truth, 
you're not my sort of flesh."
    "I bleed," Xantcha asserted, and to prove the point 
drew the knife from her boot and slashed a fingertip.
    It was a deep cut, deeper than she'd intended. Bright 
blood flowed in a steady stream from finger to palm, from 
palm over wrist, where it began to stain her sleeve.
    Rat grimaced. "That wasn't necessary," he said, 
pointedly look-ing beyond the sphere; the first time he'd 
done that. Eventually a person would face his fears, 
provided the alternatives were worse. "You'd know where to 
cut yourself."
    Xantcha held the knife hilt where Rat would see it. He 
turned further away.
    "You were thinking murder not long ago," she reminded 
him. "Bashing me so you could escape."
    Rat shook his head. "Not even close. When my family 
left
    Pincar City ... My father learned to slaughter and 
butcher meat each fall, but I never could. I always ran 
away, even last year."
    He shrank a little, as if he'd lost a bit of himself by 
the admission. Xantcha returned the knife to her boot.
    "You believe me?" she asked before sticking her bloody 
finger in her mouth.
    "I can't believe you, even if you're telling the truth. 
Urza the Artificer. Mishra. Smelling Phyrexians. This ... 
this thing-" He flung his hand to the side, struck the 
sphere, and recoiled. "You're too strange. You look like a 
boy, but you talk . . . You don't talk like anyone I've 
ever heard before, Xantcha. It's not that you sound 
foreign, but you're not Efuand. You say you're not an 
artifact and not Phyrexian. I don't know what to believe. 
Whose side are you on?"
    "Urza's side . . . against Phyrexia." Her finger hadn't 
stopped bleeding; she put it back in her mouth.
    "Urza's no hero, not to me. What he did thirty-four 
hundred years ago, his gods should still be punishing him 
for that. You throw a lot of choices in front of me, all of 
them bad, one way or another. I don't know what to think."
    "You think too much."
    "Yeah, I hear that all the time. . . ." Rat's voice 
trailed off. Whoever had chided him last had probably been 
killed by the Shratta. All the time had become history for 
him, history and grief.
    Xantcha left him alone. Her finger was pale and 
wrinkled. At least it had stopped bleeding. They'd been 
soaring due west in the grasp of a gentle, drifting wind. 
Clouds were forming to the north. So far the clouds were 
scattered, fluffy and white, but north of Efuan Pincar was 
the Endless Sea where huge storms were common and sudden. 
Xantcha used her hands to put the sphere on a southwesterly 
course and set it rising in search of stronger winds.
    Belatedly, she realized she had Rat's undivided 
attention.
    "How do you do that?" he asked. "Magic? Are you a 
sorcerer? Would that explain everything?"
    "No."
    "No?"
    "No, I don't know how I do it. I don't know how I walk, 
either, or how the food I eat keeps me alive, but it does. 
One day, Urza handed me something. He said it was a cyst, 
and he said, swallow it. Since it came from Urza, it was 
probably an artifact. I don't know for sure because I never 
asked. I know how to use it. I don't need to know more, and 
neither will you."
    "Sorry I asked. I'm just trying to think my way through 
this." "You think too much."
    She hadn't meant to repeat the comment that had jabbed 
his memory, but before she could berate herself, Rat shot 
back: "I'm supposed to be Mishra, aren't I?"
    He'd changed his mind again. It was possible that a 
man, a true flesh-and-blood man, not like Urza, couldn't 
think too much.
    The sphere found the stronger winds and slewed 
sideways. Xantcha needed full concentration to stop the 
tumbling. Rat curled up against her with his head between 
his knees. To the north, clouds billowed as she watched. It 
was unlikely that they could outrun the brewing storm, but 
they could cover a lot of territory before she had to get 
them to shelter. There would, however, be a price.
    "It's going to be fast and a little bumpy while we run 
the wind-stream. You ready?"
    Taking Rat's groan for assent, Xantcha angled her hand 
west of southwest, and the sphere leapt as if it had been 
shot from a giant's bow. If she'd been alone, Xantcha would 
have pressed both hands against the sphere's inner curve 
and let the wind roar past her face. She figured Rat wasn't 
ready for such exhilaration and kept her guiding hand 
sheltered in her lap. The northern horizon became a white 
mountain range whose highest peaks were beginning to spread 
and flatten against an invisible ceiling.
    "Somebody's going to get wild weather tonight," Xantcha 
said to her unresponsive companion. "Maybe not us, but 
someone's going to be begging Avohir's mercy."
    She guided the sphere higher. Beneath them, the ground 
resembled one of Urza's tabletops, though flatter and 
emptier: a few roads, like rusty wire through spring-green 
fields, a palisaded village of about ten homesteads tucked 
in a stream bend. Xantcha considered her promise to replace 
Rat's rags and, implicitly, to have his fetters removed.
    If she set the sphere down, the storm might keep them 
down until tomorrow. If she kept the sphere scudding, 
they'd cut a half-day or more off the journey. And by the 
amount of smoke rising from the village, the inhabitants 
were burning their fields-hardly a good time for strangers 
to show up asking favors. Xantcha swiveled her hand south 
of southwest, and the sphere bounced onto the new tack.
    "Wait!" Rat shook Xantcha's ankle. "Wait! That village. 
Can't you see? It's on fire."
    She looked again. Rat was right, fields weren't 
burning, roofs were. All the more reason to stay on the 
south by southwest course away from trouble.
    "Xantcha! It's the Shratta. It's got to be. Red-Stripes 
come looking for bribes but don't destroy the villages. We 
can't just leave-You can't! People are dying down there!"
    "I'm not a sorcerer, Rat. I'm not Urza. There's nothing 
I can do except get myself-and you-killed."
    "We can't turn our backs. We're no better than the 
Shratta, no better than the Phyrexians, if we do that."
    Rat had a real knack for getting under Xantcha's skin, 
a dangerous mixture of arrogance and charm, just like the 
real Mishra. Xantcha was about to disillusion her companion 
with the revelation that she was Phyrexian when he heaved 
himself toward the burning village. The sphere wasn't Rat's 
to command. It held to Xantcha's chosen course-as he must 
have known it would. Rat didn't seem the sort who'd 
sacrifice himself to prove a point, but he set the sphere 
tumbling. Everything was knees, elbows, food, and a sword 
before Xantcha got them sorted out.
    "Don't you ever do that again!"
    Rat accepted the challenge. This time Xantcha split his 
upper lip and planted her knee in his groin before she 
steadied the sphere.
    "We're going home ... to Urza. He's got the power to 
settle this."
    "Too damn late! People are dying down there!"
    Rat flung himself, but Xantcha was ready this time and 
the sphere scarcely bounced.
    "I'll drop you if you don't settle yourself."
    "Then drop me."
    "You'll die."
    "I'd rather be dead on the ground than alive up here."
    Rat grabbed the scabbarded sword and, with his full 
weight behind the hilt, plunged it through the sphere. 
Xantcha reeled from the impact. She hadn't known damage to 
the sphere meant sharp pain radiating from the cyst in her 
gut. She could have lived another three thousand years 
without that particular bit of knowledge. She cocked her 
fist for a punch that would shatter Rat's jaw.
    "Go ahead," he snarled defiantly. "Tell your precious 
Urza that you killed his brother a second time."
    Xantcha lowered her hand. Maybe she was wrong about his 
willingness to sacrifice himself. By then they were 
drifting away from the village and nothing but Xantcha's 
will put them on a course for the flames. The closer they 
got, the clearer it was that Rat had been right. The north 
wind brought screams of pain and terror. Born-folk were 
dying.
    When they were still several hundred paces from the 
wooden palisade, a young woman ran through the broken gate, 
her hair and hems billowing behind her, a sword-wielding 
thug in pursuit. Woman and thug both stopped short when 
they saw two strangers hovering in midair.
    "Waste not, want not!" Xantcha muttered. She thought 
Collision and Now! The cyst in her stomach grew fiery 
spikes, but the sphere plunged like a stooping hawk. It 
collapsed the instant it touched the gape-mouthed thug, 
leaving Xantcha to strike with sufficient force to knock 
him unconscious. She bounded to her feet and crushed the 
now-defenseless man's skull with her boot heel, 
deliberately splattering Rat with gore. If he wanted death; 
she'd show him death. The village woman screamed and kept 
running. Xantcha seized the sword from the tangle of bodies 
and spilled baskets. "All right!" She thrust the hilt 
toward Rat. When he didn't take it up, she poked him hard. 
"This is what you wanted! Go ahead. Go in there. Save 
them!"
    "I-I can't use a sword. I don't know how. ... I 
thought-"
    "You thought!" Xantcha angled the sword, prepared to 
clout him with the hilt. "You think too much!"
    Rat got to his feet, stumbling over his chain. He 
stared at the iron links as if he hadn't seen them before. 
Whatever nonsense he'd been thinking, he hadn't remembered 
his fetters.
    "I can't... You'll have to-"
    She shook her head slowly. "I told you, I'm no damn 
sorcerer, no damn warrior. This is your idiot's idea, your 
fight. So, you choose: them or me."
    It was the same ominous, otherworldly tone Xantcha had 
used with Garve and Tucktah. She cocked the sword a second 
time, and Rat grabbed the hilt. He couldn't run, so he 
skipped and hopped toward the gate.
    "Lose the scabbard!" Xantcha shouted after him then 
muttered Phyrexian curses as Rat stumbled through the gate 
brandishing a scabbarded sword.
    Rat was a fool, and fools deserved whatever harm befell 
them, but Xantcha's anger faded as soon as her nemesis was 
out of sight. She reached into her belt-pouch and finger-
sorted a few of the smallest, blackest coins.Then, with 
them clutched loosely in her hand, she yawned out Urza's 
armor and followed Rat into the besieged village. Not being 
a sorcerer wasn't quite the same as not having any 
sorcerous tricks in her arsenal, and not being a warrior 
was a statement of preference, not experience. There 
weren't many weapons Xantcha didn't know how to use or 
evade. On other worlds she'd routinely carried several of 
them.
    But not on Dominaria. She'd given her word.
    "I know your temper," Urza had said after they arrived. 
"But this is home-my home. My traveling years are over. I'm 
never leaving Dominaria, and I don't want you starting 
brawls and drawing attention to yourself ... or me. Promise 
me you'll stay out of trouble. Promise me that you'll walk 
away rather than start a fight."
    "Waste not, want not-I did not start this, Urza. Truly, 
I did not."
    A gutted corpse lay one step within the gate, but it 
wasn't Rat's. Xantcha leapt over it. A man bearing a bloody 
knife ran out of a burning cottage on her left. She slipped 
a coin into her throwing hand, then stayed her arm as a 
second, similarly armed, man burst out of the cottage.
    Villagers or Shratta thugs? Was one chasing the other? 
Were they both fleeing? Or looking for more victims?
    Xantcha couldn't tell by their clothes or manner. Few 
things were more frustrating or dangerous than barging into 
a brawl among strangers. After cursing Rat to the Seventh 
Sphere of Phyrexia, she entered the cottage the men had 
abandoned.
    The one-room dwelling was filled with smoke. Xantcha 
called Rat's name and got no answer. Back on the village's 
single street, she headed for the largest building she 
could see and had taken about ten strides when an arrow 
struck her shoulder. Urza's armor was as good as granite 
when it came to arrows. The shaft splintered, and the 
arrowhead slid harmlessly down her back.
    In one smooth movement, Xantcha spun around and hurled 
a small, black coin at a fleeing archer. The coin began to 
glow as soon as it left her hand. It was white-hot by the 
time it struck the archer's neck. He was dead before he hit 
the ground, with thick, greenish-black fumes rising from 
the fatal wound.
    A swordsman attacked Xantcha next. He knocked her down 
with his first attack but was unnerved when she sprang up, 
unbloodied. Xantcha parried his next strike with her 
forearm as she closed in to kick him once in the stomach 
and a second time, as he crumbled, to the jaw. She paused 
to pick up the sword, then continued down the street 
shouting Rat's name, attracting attention.
    Two more men appeared in front of her. They knew each 
other and the warrior's trade, giving each other room, 
exchanging gestures and cryptic commands as they 
approached. The strategy might have worked if Xantcha had 
been unarmored or if the sword had been her only weapon. 
Her aim with the coins wasn't as good with her off-weapon 
hand. Only one struck its target, but that was enough. The 
other two exploded when they hit the ground, leaving goat-
sized craters in the packed dirt.
    Her surviving enemy rushed forward, more intent on 
getting out of the village than fighting. Xantcha swung, 
but he parried well and had momentum on his side. Xantcha 
slammed backward into the nearest wall when he shoved her 
aside. Elsewhere in the village, someone blew three rapid 
notes on a horn, and a weaponed quartet at the other end of 
the village street dashed for the gate. For religious 
fanatics, the Shratta were better disciplined than most 
armies. Dark suspicion led Xantcha to inhale deeply, but 
beyond the smoke and the blood, there was nothing Phyrex-
ian in the air.
    A straggler ran past. Xantcha let him go. This was 
Rat's fight, not hers, and she didn't yet know if he'd 
survived.
    "Ra-te-pe!" She used all three syllables of his name. 
"Ra-te-pe, son of Mideah, get yourself out here!"
    A face appeared in the darkened doorway of the barn 
that had been her destination. It belonged to an older man, 
armed with a pitchfork. He stepped unsteadily over the 
doorsill.
    "No one here owns that name."
    "There'd better be. He's meat if he ran."
    Two more villagers emerged from the barn: a woman 
clutching her bloody arm against her side and a stone-faced 
toddler who clung to her skirt.
    "Who are you?" the elder asked, giving the pitchfork a 
shake, reminding Xantcha that she held a bare and bloody 
sword.
    "Xantcha. Rat and I were . . . nearby." She threw the 
sword into the dirt beside the last man she'd killed. "He 
saw the roofs burning."
    They still were. The survivors made no effort to 
extinguish the blazes. A village like this probably had one 
well and only a handful of buckets. The cottages were 
partly stone; they could be rebuilt after the fires burnt 
out.
    The elder shook his head. Plainly he didn't believe 
that anyone had simply been nearby. But Xantcha had laid 
down her weapon. He shouted an all's well that lured a few 
more mute survivors from their hiding places.
    Still no Rat.
    Xantcha turned, intending to investigate the other end 
of the village. The woman who'd fled-the one who'd seen 
them descend in the sphere-was on the street behind her. 
Her reappearance, alive and unharmed, broke the villagers' 
shock. Another woman let out a cry that could have been 
either joy or grief.
    The returning woman replied, "Mother," but her eyes 
were locked on Xantcha and her hands were knotted in ward-
signs against evil.
    Time to find Rat and get moving. Xantcha walked quickly 
to the other end of the village where a whitewashed temple 
held the place of honor. The door was held open by a 
corpse.
    Given who was fighting in Efuan Pincar, Xantcha 
supposed she shouldn't have been surprised that the temple 
had become a char-nel house. She counted ten men, each with 
his hands bound and his throat slit, lying in a common, 
bloody pool. There were more corpses, similarly bound, 
sprawled closer to the altar, but she'd spotted Rat staring 
at a wall before she'd counted them. "We've got to leave."
    He didn't twitch. The scabbard was gone; the sword 
blade was dark and glistening in the temple's gloomy light. 
Rat had probably never held a sword before Xantcha made him 
more afraid of her than death. Odds were he'd become a 
killer, if not a fighter, in the past hour. A man could 
crack under that kind of strain. Xantcha approached him 
cautiously. "Rat? Ratepe?"
    The wall was covered with bloody words. Xantcha could 
read a score of Dominarian languages, most of them long-
extinct, none of them Efuand. "What does it say?"
    "Those who defile the Shratta will be cleansed in their 
own blood. Blessed be Avohir, in whose name this has been 
done."'
    Xantcha placed her hand over his sword-gripping hand. 
Without a word, Rat released the hilt.
    "If there are gods," she said softly, "then thugs like 
the Shratta don't speak for them."
    She tried to guide Rat toward the door; he resisted, 
quietly but completely. Mortals, men who were born and who 
grew old, saw death in ways no Phyrexian newt could 
imagine, in ways Urza had forgotten. Xantcha had exhausted 
her meager store of platitudes.
    "You knew the Shratta were here, Rat. You must have 
known what you'd find."
    "No."
    "I stopped at other villages before I got to Medran. 
You weren't the first to tell me about the Shratta. This is 
their handiwork."
    "It's not!" Rat shrugged free.
    "It's time to leave." Xantcha grasped his arm again.
    Rat struck like a serpent but did no harm only because 
Xantcha was a hair's breath faster in jumping away. She 
recognized madness on his tear-streaked face.
    "All right. Tell me. Talk to me. Why isn't this Shratta 
handiwork?"
    "Him."
    Rat pointed at an isolated corpse slumped in the corner 
between the written-on wall and the wall behind the altar. 
The man had died because his gut had been slashed open, but 
he had other wounds, many other wounds, none of which had 
bled appreciably. Xantcha, who'd fought and sometimes 
succumbed to her own blind rages, knew at once that this 
was the man-probably the only man-that Rat had killed.
    "All right, what about him?"
    "Look at him! He's not Shratta!"
    "How do you know?" Xantcha asked, willing to believe 
him, if he had a good answer.
    "Look at his hands!"
    She nudged them with her foot. The light was bad, but 
they seemed ordinary enough to her. "What? I see nothing 
unordinary."
    "The Hands of God. The Shratta are Avohir's Avengers. 
They tattoo their hands with Shratta-verses from Avohir's 
holy book."
    "Maybe he was a new recruit?"
    Rat shook his head vigorously. "It's more than his 
hands. He's clean-shaven. The Shratta never cut their 
beards."
    Xantcha ran through her memory. Since she'd arrived in 
Efuan Pincar the only clean-shaven men she'd seen had been 
in Medran, wearing Red-Stripe tunics, and here where the 
men she'd fought and the man Rat had killed were beardless.
    "So, it's not the Shratta after all? It's Red-Stripes 
pretending to be Shratta?" she asked.
    And knowing that the Phyrexians had invaded the Red-
Stripe cadres, Xantcha asked another, silent, question: Had 
the Phyrexians created their own enemy to bring war and 
suffering to an obscure corner of Dominaria? If so, they'd 
learned considerable subtlety since Oix destined her to 
sleep on another world.
    Rat's head continued to shake. "I've seen the Shratta 
cut through a family like ripe cheese. I saw them draw my 
uncle's guts out through a hole in his gut: they'd said 
he'd spilled dog's blood on the book. I know the Shratta, 
Xantcha, and this is what they'd do, except, this man 
isn't-and can't be-Shratta."
    Keeping her voice calm, Xantcha said, "You said you 
were gone when the Shratta came through your village. You 
didn't see anything. It could have been the Red-Stripes."
    "Could've," Rat agreed easily. "But I saw my uncle get 
killed, and I saw it before we left Pincar City, and it was 
the Shratta. By the book, by the true book, Xantcha. Why 
would Red-Stripes do this? No one but the Shratta support 
the Shratta. The people here ... at home, what was home . . 
. the Shratta would come, real Shratta, and they'd tell us 
what to do, which was mostly give them everything we had 
and then some; and they would kill if they didn't get what 
they wanted." Rat shuddered. "My family were strangers, 
driven out of Pincar City, but everyone hated the Shratta 
as much as we did. We'd pray ... we'd all pray, Xantcha, to 
Avohir to send us red-striped warriors from the cities. The 
Red-Stripes were our protectors."
    "Be careful what you pray for, I guess. It sounds like 
the Red-Stripes may have been doing the Shratta's dirty 
work, and leaving behind no witnesses to reveal the truth."
    Rat had reached a similar conclusion. "And if that's 
true, they're not finished with this place. They're waiting 
outside. They won't have gone away. Everyone here is dead, 
you and me, too, unless we can kill them all."
    "It's worse than that, Rat. Somebody's gone. Somebody's 
running a report back somewhere." To a Phyrexian sleeper, 
saying he'd seen a dark-haired youth hovering in a sphere? 
No, she'd killed the thug who'd seen them in the sphere. 
But she'd shaken off an arrow. Phyrexians might lack 
imagination, but they had excellent memories. Somebody 
might remember Gix's identical newts, especially since 
Dominaria was the world Phyrexia coveted above all others, 
the world of her earliest dreams. Urza was right, as usual. 
She'd lost her temper, and the price could be very high. 
"We've got to leave."
    "Everyone will die!"
    "No deader than they'd be if we'd never set foot here."
    "But their blood will be on our hands-on my hands, 
since you don't seem to have a conscience. I'm not 
leaving."
    "There's no point in staying."
    "The Red-Stripes will come back. We'll kill them, then 
we can leave."
    "I told you, there's no point. They'll have sent a 
runner. This village is doomed."
    Rat paced noisily. "All right, it's doomed. So after we 
kill the Red-Stripes that are still outside the village, 
you take these people, one by one, to other villages, where 
they can spread the truth and disappear. By the time the 
runner leads more Red-Stripes here, this place will be 
empty. It can be done."
    "You can't be serious."
    But Rat was, and Xantcha had a conscience. It could be 
done. First came a long, violent night roaming the fields 
outside the village with her armor and a sharp knife, 
followed by three days of burying the dead and another five 
of ferrying frightened survivors to places where they could 
"spread the truth about the Shratta and the Red-Stripes 
then disappear." But it was done, and on the morning of the 
tenth day, after leaving Rat's fetters draped across the 
defiled altar, they resumed their journey out of Efuan 
Pincar.
 
                        CHAPTER 8
 
    Xantcha guided the sphere with a rigid hand. The 
Glimmer Moon hung low in the night sky, painfully bright 
yet providing little illumination for the land below. A 
dark ridge loomed to the south. On the other side of that 
ridge there was a familiar cottage with two front doors and 
the bed in which she expected to be sleeping before 
midnight.
    It was a clear night reminiscent of winter. The air was 
dead-calm and freezing within the sphere. Her feet had been 
quietly numb since sundown. Beside her, Rat hadn't said a 
word since the first stars appeared. She hoped he was 
asleep.
    And perhaps he was, but he awoke when the sphere 
pitched forward and plummeted toward a black-mirror lake 
Xantcha hadn't noticed. He'd had nearly two weeks to learn 
when to tuck his head and keep his terror to himself, but 
in the dark, with food and whatnot tumbling around them, 
Xantcha didn't begrudge Rat a moment of panic. In truth, 
she scarcely noticed his shouts; the plunge caught her 
unprepared. It was several moments before she heard 
anything other than her own heart's pounding.
    By then Rat had reclaimed his perch atop the sacks. 
"You could set us down for the night," he suggested.
    "We're almost there."
    "You said that at noon."
    "It was true then, and it's truer now. We're almost to 
the cottage."
    Rat made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat. 
Xantcha gave him a sidelong glance. Through the dim light 
she could see that he'd hunched down in his cloak and 
pulled the cowl up so it formed a funnel around his face. 
She'd collected Rat's new clothes as she'd ferried Red-
Stripe survivors to other Efuand villages. They were 
nothing like the clothes Mishra would have worn- nothing 
like the travel-worn silks and suedes Xantcha herself wore-
but they were the best she'd been able to find, and Rat had 
seemed genuinely grateful for them.
    He'd cleaned up better than Xantcha had dared hope. 
Their first full day in the ruined village, while she'd 
been talking relocation with the elders, Rat had persuaded 
one of the women to trim his hair. He'd procured a handful 
of pumice the same way and spent that afternoon scrubbing 
himself-and being scrubbed-in the stream-fed pool where the 
women did laundry.
    "You didn't have to bother the villagers." Xantcha had 
told him when she'd seen him next, all pink and raw, 
especially on the chin. "I could have loaned you my knife."
    He'd looked down at her, shaking his head and half-
smiling. "When you're old enough to grow whiskers, Xantcha, 
you'll realize a man doesn't have to cut his own hair."
    Xantcha had started to say that with or without 
whiskers Rat would never be as old as she was, but that 
half-smile had confused her. Even now, when she couldn't 
see through the dark or the cowl, she suspected he was 
half-smiling again, and she didn't know what to say. Once 
washed and dressed in clothes that didn't reek, he'd proved 
attractive, at least to the extent that Xantcha understood 
mortal handsomeness. Rat didn't resemble any of Xantcha's 
Antiquity Wars portraits, and there was a generosity to him 
that softened the otherwise hard lines of his face.
    Rat had healed almost as fast as a newt. His bruises 
were shadows now, and the sores around his neck, wrists, 
and ankles shrank daily. Every morning had seen a bit more 
flesh on his bones, a bit more swagger in his stride. He'd 
become Mishra: charming, passionate, unpredictable, and 
vaguely dangerous. Kayla Bin-Kroog would have known what to 
say-Kayla had known what to say to Urza's brother-but 
Xantcha wasn't Urza's wife, and, anyway, Rat thought of her 
as a boy, a deception that, all other things considered, 
Xantcha thought she might continue after they returned to 
the cottage ... if Urza cooperated.
    She touched his shoulder gingerly. "Don't worry, we'll 
be there tonight."
    Rat shrugged her hand away. The cowl fell, and she 
could see his face faintly in the moonlight. He wasn't 
smiling. "Tonight or tomorrow morning, what difference can 
it make?"
    "Urza's waiting. It's been more a month since I left. 
I've never been gone this long."
    "You'll be gone forever if you don't stop pushing 
yourself. Even if he were the real Urza, he'd tell you to 
rest before you hurt yourself."
    Rat didn't know Urza. Urza was inexhaustible, 
indestructible; he assumed Xantcha was too, and so, 
usually, did she.
    "We're almost there. I'm not tired, and I don't need to 
rest." The words were no sooner said than the sphere caught 
another downdraft, not as precipitous as the first one, but 
enough to fling them against each other. "You're making 
mistakes."
    "You know nothing about this!" Xantcha shot back. She 
tilted her hand too far, overcorrected, and wound up in 
Rat's lap.
    He pushed her away. "What more do I need to know? Put 
it down."
    "I didn't argue with you when you said those villagers 
needed to be rescued."
    "I'm not arguing with you. I know you want me to meet 
Urza. You think there's not a moment to lose against the 
Phyrexians, but not like this, Xantcha. This is foolish, as 
foolish as buying me in the first place, only I can't help 
you keep this damn thing in the air."
    "Right-you can't help, so be quiet."
    And he was, as quiet as he'd been that first night out 
of Medran. Xantcha hadn't believed it was possible, but 
Rat's silence was worse than Urza's, because Rat wasn't 
ignoring her. He wasn't frightened, either; just sitting 
beside her, a cold, blank wall even when she pushed the 
sphere against the wind. There were moments when she could 
believe that Rat was Urza's real brother.
    "You don't have to be Mishra, not yet."
    Another of Rat's annoyed, annoying noises. "I'm not 
being Mishra. Mishra wouldn't care if you killed yourself 
getting him to Urza and, if you asked me, the real Urza 
wouldn't either. The real Urza didn't care about anything 
except what he wanted. The way you're acting, I'm starting 
to think you believe what you've been telling me. It's all 
over your face, Xantcha. You're the one who's worried 
because you're afraid. More afraid of the man you call 
Urza, I think, than of any Phyrexian."
    It was Xantcha's turn to stare at the black ridge on 
the southern horizon and convince herself that Rat was 
wrong. The ridge was beneath them before she broke the 
silence.
    "You don't believe anything I've told you."
    "It's pretty far-fetched."
    "But you've come all this way with me. There were so 
many times, when I was ferrying the villagers about, that 
you could have run away, but you didn't. I thought you'd 
decided I was telling you the truth. Why did you stop 
trying to run away, if you didn't believe anything I said?"
    "Because six months ago I would've sworn on my life 
that I'd never leave Efuan Pincar, not with some half-wit 
boy whose got a thing in his belly. I'd've sworn a lot of 
things six months ago, and I'd've been wrong about all of 
them. I'm getting used to being wrong and I did give you my 
word, freely, when you agreed to get those villagers to 
safety, that I'd play your game. You weren't paying 
attention, but I was. You saved them because I asked you 
to, and that makes you my friend, at least for now."
    "You've got to believe, Rat. If you don't believe, Urza 
won't, and I don't know what he'll do-to either of us-if he 
thinks I've tried to deceive him."
    "I'll worry about Urza the Artificer," Rat said 
wearily.
    He was patronizing her, despite everything she'd told 
him. All the lessons in language and history she'd given to 
him after dark in the village, Rat didn't believe.
    He continued, "You worry about that shadow coming up. I 
think it's another lake, and I think we're going to go rump 
over elbows again if you don't wriggle your hand around 
it."
    Rat was right about the lake. Xantcha wove her hand to 
one side, and another unpleasant moment was averted. It had 
taken her decades to learn the tricks that air could play 
on her sphere. Rat was quicker, cleverer than she'd ever 
been. There was a chance he was right about Urza, too, 
especially when she saw eldritch light leaking through the 
cottage windows after the sphere cleared the ridge.
    "He's locked himself in," she muttered, unable to keep 
disappointment out of her voice.
    "You didn't think he'd be waiting by the door, not in 
the middle of the night? A locked door isn't a bad idea, if 
you're alone and you've got the sorcery to make it stick. A 
man gets tired," said Rat.
    "Not Urza," Xantcha said softly as the sphere touched 
down and collapsed.
    Without the sphere's skin to support them, their 
supplies rearranged themselves across the ground. It was 
quicker than the chaos they endured when the sphere tumbled 
through the air, but quite a bit more painful on the hard 
ground; a wooden box corner came down squarely on Xantcha's 
cold ankle.
    She was still cursing when the eldritch locks vanished. 
Urza appeared in the open doorway.
    "Xantcha! Where have-?"
    He'd noticed Rat. His eyes began to glow. Xantcha 
hadn't considered the possibility that Urza might simply 
kill any stranger who appeared outside his door.
    "No!" Xantcha wanted to get herself between the two 
men, but her feet wouldn't cooperate. "Urza! Listen to me!"
    She'd no sooner gotten Urza's attention than Rat 
wrested it away again with a single, soft-spoken word:
    "Brother . . ."
    Every night in the village Xantcha had sat up with Rat 
telling him about Urza and Urza's obsessions. She'd warned 
him about Urza's uncanny eyes and the tabletop where his 
gnats recreated-refined-the scenes from Kayla's epic. She'd 
taught him the rudiments of the polyglot language she and 
Urza spoke when they were alone because it was rich in the 
words he'd shared with Mishra, when they were both men. 
She'd taught him the word for brother and insisted he 
practice it until he got it right, but the word he'd said 
was pure Efuand dialect.
    For a moment the space between them was as dark as the 
space between the stars overhead, then the golden light 
that had been in the cottage flowed from Urza toward Rat, 
who didn't flinch as it surrounded him.
    "You wished to see me, Brother," he continued in 
Efuand. "It's been a long, hard journey, but I've come 
back."
    Urza could absorb a new language as easily as a plowed 
field absorbed the spring rains. Most of the time, he 
didn't notice the switch, but Xantcha had thought Urza 
might pay attention to Mishra's language, to the language 
that anyone pretending to be Mishra spoke during the 
critical first moments of their encounter. She was ready to 
kill Rat with her own hands, if Urza didn't do it for her. 
His eyes hadn't stopped glowing, and she'd seen those 
jewels obliterate creatures vastly more powerful than an 
overconfident slave from Efuan Pincar.
    "Speak to me, Urza. It's been so long. We never 
finished our last conversation, never truly began it."
    "Where?" Urza asked, a whisper on a cold, cold wind. At 
least he'd spoken Efuand.
    "Before the blood-red tent of the warlord of Kroog. We 
stood as far apart as we stand now. You said we should 
remember that we were brothers."
    "The tent was not red, and I said no such thing."
    "Do you call me a liar, Brother? I remember less, 
Brother, but I remember very clearly. I have been here all 
the time, waiting for you; it would have been easier if 
your memory were not flawed."
    Urza's eyes took on the painful brilliance of the 
Glimmer Moon. Xantcha was certain that Rat would sizzle 
like raindrops in a bonfire, yet the light didn't harm him, 
and after a few rib-thumping heartbeats she began to 
petceive Rat's unexpected brilliance. The real Mishra had 
been supremely confident and never, even in the best of 
times, willing to concede a point to his elder brother. 
Between Urza and Mishra, attitude was more important than 
language, and Rat had the right attitude.
    "It is possible," Urza conceded as his eyes dimmed to a 
mortal color. "Each time I refine my automata, I learn what 
I had forgotten. It is a short step between forgotten and 
misremem-bered."
    Raising his hand, Urza took a hesitant stride toward 
Rat- toward Mishra. He stopped short of touching his 
putative brother's flesh.
    "I dreamed that in time, through time, I'd find a way 
to talk to you, to warn you of the dangers neither of us 
saw when we were alive together. I never dreamed that you 
would find me. You. It is you, Mishra?"
    Urza moved without moving, placing his open hand across 
Rat's cheek. Even Xantcha, who knew Urza could change his 
shape faster than muscle could move bone, was stunned. As 
for Rat himself-Rat, who'd refused to believe her warnings 
that her Urza was the Urza who'd become more like a god 
than a man- he went deathly pale beneath Urza's long, 
elegant and essentially lifeless fingers. His eyes rolled, 
and his body slackened: he'd fainted, but Urza's curiosity 
kept him upright.
    "They took your skin, Mishra, and stretched it over one 
of their abominations. Do you remember? Do you remember 
them coming for you? Do you remember dying?"
    Rat's limp arms and legs began to tremble. Xantcha's 
breath caught in her throat. She'd never believed that Urza 
was cruel, merely careless. He'd lived so long in his own 
mad isolation that he'd forgotten the frailties of ordinary 
flesh, especially of flesh more ordinary than that of a 
Phyrexian newt. She was certain that once Urza noticed what 
was he was doing, he'd relent. He could heal as readily as 
he harmed.
    But Urza didn't notice what he was doing to the youth 
she'd brought from Efuan Pincar. Rat writhed like a stuck 
serpent. Blood seeped from his nose. Xantcha threw herself 
into the golden light.
    "Stop!" Xantcha seized Urza's outstretched arm. She 
might have been a fly on a mountain top for the effect she 
had. "You're killing him."
    Suddenly, Urza's arm hung at his side again. Xantcha 
reeled backward, fighting for balance while Rat collapsed.
    "There is nothing in his mind. I sought the answers 
that have eluded me: when did the Phyrexians come for him? 
Did he fight? Did he surrender willingly? Did he call my 
name? He has no answers, Xantcha. He has nothing at all. My 
brother's mind is as empty as yours. I do not understand. I 
found you too late; the damage had already been done. But 
how and why has Mishra come back to me if he is not 
himself, if his mind is not alive with the thoughts I know 
should be there."
    Xantcha knew her mind was empty. She was Phyrexian, a 
newt engendered in a vat of turgid slime. She had no 
imagination, no great thoughts or ambitions, not even a 
heart that could be crushed by humiliation, whether that 
humiliation came from Urza or Oix.
    Rat was another matter. He lay face-down in a heap of 
awkwardly bent limbs. "He's a man," Xantcha snarled. She'd 
caught her balance, but kept her distance. Another step 
closer and she'd be a child looking up to meet Urza's eyes. 
She was too angry for that. "His mind is his own. It's not 
a book for you to read and cast aside!"
    Xantcha couldn't guess whether Rat was still alive, 
even when Urza put his foot against the youth's flank to 
shove him onto his back.
    "This is only the first. There will be others. The 
first is never final; there must always be refinements. If 
I have learned nothing else, I have learned that. I was 
working in the wrong direction- thinking that I'd have to 
reach back through time to find Mishra and the truth. And 
because I was not looking for Mishra, he could not find me, 
not as he must find me. But his truth will come to me once 
I have refined the path. I can see them, Xantcha: a line of 
Mishras, each bearing a piece of the truth. They will come 
and come until one of them bears it all." Urza headed to 
his open door. "There is no time." He stopped and laughed 
aloud. "Time, Xantcha . . . think of it! I have finally 
found the way to negate time. I will start again. Do not 
disturb me."
    He was mad, Xantcha reminded herself, and she'd been a 
fool to think she could outwit him. Unlike Rat, Urza never 
changed his mind. He interpreted everything through the 
prism of his obsessions. Urza couldn't be held responsible 
for what had happened.
    That burden fell on her.
    Xantcha had never kept count of those she'd slain or 
watched die. Surely there were hundreds . . . thousands, if 
she included Phyrexians, but she'd never betrayed anyone as 
she'd betrayed Ratepe, son of Mideah. She knelt beside him, 
straightening his corpse, starting with his legs. Ratepe 
hadn't begun to stiffen; his skin was still warm.
    "There will be no others!" Urza turned around. "What 
did you say?" "I said, this was a man, Urza. He was a man, 
born and living until you killed him. He wasn't an artifact 
on your table that you could sweep onto the floor when you 
were finished with him. You didn't make him-" She 
hesitated. Burdened with guilt, she saw that her clever 
plan to have Ratepe pose as Mishra required confession. 
"That tabletop didn't reach through the past. I went 
looking for a man who resembled your brother, I found him, 
and I brought him here.
    "I won't do it again, so there won't-"
    "You, Xantcha? Don't speak nonsense. This was my 
brother- the first shadow of my brother. You could not have 
found him without me."
    "I'm not speaking nonsense! You had nothing to do with 
this, Urza. This was my idea, my bad idea. His name was 
never Mishra. His name was Ratepe, son of Mideah. I bought 
him from a slaver in Efuan Pincar."
    Urza appeared thunderstruck. Xantcha leaned forward to 
straighten Ratepe's other leg. Efuands buried their dead in 
grass-lined graves that faced the sunrise. She'd helped dig 
several of them. There was a suitable spot not far from her 
window where she'd see it easily and lament her folly each 
time she did.
    Unless she left . . . soared back to Efuan Pincar to do 
battle with the Phyrexians in Ratepe's name. If the cyst 
would still respond to her whims. If Urza didn't destroy 
her when his thoughts finally made their way back to the 
world of life and death.
    She reached for Ratepe's crooked arm.
    "A slaver? You sought my brother's avatar in a slaver's 
pens?"
    Avatar-a spirit captured in flesh. Xantcha recognized 
the word but had never consciously used it; it was the 
right word, though, for what she'd wanted Ratepe to become. 
"Yes." She straightened Ratepe's elbow. "Mishra was a 
Fallaji slave."
    "Mishra was advisor to the qadir."
    "Mishra was a slave. The Fallaji captured him before 
you got to Yotia; they never freed him-not formally. It's 
in The Antiquity Wars. He told Kayla, and she wrote down 
his words."
    Xantcha had never told Urza about her chest filled with 
copies of his wife's epic. He hadn't asked, hadn't 
volunteered any sense of his past here in his home, except 
what arose from his tabletop artifacts. He didn't appear 
pleased to hear Kayla's name falling off her tongue. 
Xantcha sensed she was living dangerously, very 
dangerously.
    She took Ratepe's hand. It was stiff; rigor had begun. 
Gently, she uncurled his fingers.
    They resisted, tightened, squeezed.
    Before she could think, Xantcha jerked her hand away-or 
tried to. Ratepe didn't let go, and she stayed where she 
was, kneeling beside him, breathless with shock. She looked 
down. He winked, then kept both eyes shut.
    "Waste not, want not," she whispered and cast her 
glance quickly in Una's direction but Urza was elsewhere.
    "I did not tell you to read that story." His voice came 
from a cold place, far from his heart. "Kayla Bin-Kroog 
never knew the truth and did not write it, either. She 
chose to live in a mist, with neither light nor shadow to 
guide her. You cannot believe anything in The Antiquity 
Wars, Xantcha, especially about Mishra. My wife saw her 
world through a veil of emotions. She saw people, not 
patterns, and when she saw my brother . . ." He didn't 
finish his thought, but offered another: "She didn't mean 
to betray me. I'm sure she thought she could be the bridge 
between us; it was too late. I honored Harbin, but after 
that, it was all lies between us. I couldn't trust her. You 
can't either."
    Before Xantcha could say that Kayla's version of the 
war made more sense, Ratepe sat bolt upright.
    "I've heard it said that there's no way a man can be 
absolutely certain that his wife's child is his and only 
one way he can be cer-tain that it's not. Kayla Bin-Kroog 
was an attractive woman, Urza, and wiser than you'll know. 
She did try to become a bridge, but not with her body. She 
was tempted. I made certain she was tempted, but she never 
succumbed, which, my Brother, begs one almighty question: 
How and why are you so certain Harbin was not your son?"
    Suddenly, they were all in darkness as Urza's golden 
light vanished.
    "You've done it now," Xantcha said softly and with more 
than a little admiration. She'd never gotten the better of 
Urza that way. "He's gone 'walking."
    But Urza hadn't 'walked away, and when the light 
returned it flowed from an Urza that Xantcha had never seen 
before: a youthful Urza, dressed in a dirt-laborer's dusty 
clothes and smiling as he reached out to take Ratepe's 
hands.
    "I have missed you, Brother. I've had no one to talk 
to. Stand up, stand up! Come with me! Let me show you what 
I've learned while you were gone. It was Ashnod, you know-"
    Ratepe proved he was as consistent as he was reckless. 
He folded his arms across his chest and stayed where he 
was. "You've had Xantcha. He's not 'no one.' "
    "Xantcha!"
    While Urza laughed, Xantcha got to her feet.
    "Xantcha! I rescued Xantcha a thousand years ago-no, 
longer than that, more than three thousand years ago. Don't 
be fooled by appearances, as I was. She's Phyrexian-cooked 
up in one of their vats. A mistake. A failure. A slave. 
They were getting ready to bury her when I came along; 
thought she was Argivian at first. She's loyal ... to me. 
She's got her own reasons for turning on Phyrexia. But her 
mind is limited. You can talk to her, but only a fool would 
listen."
    Xantcha couldn't meet Ratepe's eyes. When they were 
alone and Urza belittled her, she could blame it on his 
madness. Now there were three of them standing outside the 
cottage. Urza wasn't talking to her, he was talking about 
her, and there were no excuses. All their centuries 
together, all the experiences no one else had shared, and 
he'd never conquered his distrust, his disdain.
    "I think-" Ratepe began, and Xantcha forced herself to 
catch his attention.
    She mouthed the single word, Don't. It didn't matter 
what Urza thought of her, so long as he stopped playing 
with his tabletop gnats. Xantcha mouthed a second word, 
Phyrexia, and made a fist where Ratepe could see it. She 
hoped she'd told him what mattered, and that it wasn't her.
    Ratepe cleared his throat. He said, "I think it is not 
the time to argue, Urza," and made the words sound sincere. 
"We have always done too much of that. I always did too 
much of that. There, I've admitted it, and the world did 
not end. Not yet; not again. You think we made our fatal 
mistake on the Plains of Kor. I think we made it earlier. 
After so long, it doesn't matter, does it? It was the same 
mistake either way. We couldn't talk, we could only 
compete. And you won. I see the Weakstone in your left eye. 
Have you ever heard it singing to you, Urza?"
    Sing?
    Anyone who'd read The Antiquity Wars would know that 
Urza's eyes had once been his Mightstone and his brother's 
Weakstone. Tawnos had brought that scrap back to Kayla. 
Ratepe claimed he'd read Kayla's epic several times, and 
between two stones and two eyes, he could have made a lucky 
guess. The Weakstone had, indeed, become Urza's left eye. 
But sing? Urza had never mentioned singing.
    Xantcha couldn't guess what had fired Ratepe's all-too-
mortal imagination, but as Urza frowned and stared at the 
stars, she guessed it had propelled him too far.
    Then Urza began to speak. "I hear it now, faintly, 
without word, but a song of sadness. Your song?"
    Xantcha was stunned.
    Urza continued: "The stone we found-the single stone-
was a weapon, you know: The final defense of the Thran, 
their last sacrifice. They blocked the portal to Phyrexia. 
You and I, when we sundered the stone, we opened the 
portal. We let them back into Dominaria. I never asked you 
what you saw that day."
    Ratepe grinned. "Didn't I say that we made our mistake 
much earlier?"
    Urza clapped his hands together and laughed heartily. 
"You did! Yes, you did! We've got a second chance, brother. 
This time, we'll talk." He opened his arms, gesturing 
toward the open doorway. "Come, let me show you what I've 
learned while you were gone. Let me show you the wonders of 
artifice, pure artifice, Brother-none of those Phyrexian 
abominations. And Ashnod! Wait until I show you Ashnod: a 
viper at your breast, Brother. She was their first 
conquest, your biggest mistake."
    "Show me everything," Ratepe said, walking into Urza's 
embrace. "Then we'll talk."
    Arm in arm, they walked toward the cottage. A few steps 
short of the threshold, Ratepe shot a glance over his 
shoulder. He seemed to expect some gesture from her, but 
Xantcha, unable to guess what it should be, simply stood 
with her arms limp at her sides.
    "And when we're done talking, Urza, we'll listen to 
Xantcha."
    The door shut without a sound. The light was gone, and 
Xantcha was left with only moonlight to help her haul the 
food supplies.
 
                        CHAPTER 9
 
    Cold fog rolled down from the mountains. Xantcha's 
fingers stiffened, and the rest of her grew clumsy. When 
she wasn't tripping over her feet, she dropped bundles and 
cursed loudly, not caring if she disturbed the two men on 
the other side of the wall.
    She didn't disturb them. Urza had a new audience for 
his table-top. He wouldn't notice the world if it ended. 
And Ratepe? Ratepe was playing the dangerous game Xantcha 
had told him to play and playing it better than she'd dared 
hope. She'd all but told him not to pay any attention to 
her; she could hardly begrudge obedience-or fail to notice 
that Urza's door was unwarded. She could have left the 
sacks where the sphere had scattered them.
    Ratepe-Rat-Mishra-would have defended her right to join 
them. Xantcha was tempted to walk through the door, if only 
to hear what the young Efuand would say, which, considering 
all that hung in the balance was a selfish temptation. She 
resisted it until the last of the supplies was stowed in 
the pantry and the fog had matured into an ice-needle rain.
    Inside her room, with the shutters bolted against the 
chill, Xantcha found herself too tired to sleep. Eyes open 
and empty, she ay on her bed able to hear the sounds of 
conversation beyond the wall without catching any of the 
words. She piled pillows atop her face, pulled the blankets 
tight, then threw everything aside. Before long, Xantcha 
had wedged herself into the corner at the foot of the bed. 
With her knees tucked beneath her chin and a blanket draped 
over her head, Xantcha tried to think of other things....
    Of her first conversation with Urza . . .
    "There is a shelter at the bottom of the hill. Take me 
there. I'll show you the way to Phyrexia."
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Urza frowned. Xantcha had rarely seen a face creased 
with dis-pleasure. She expected his jaw to fall to the 
ground But her rescuer was flexible-a newt like herself, or 
one of born-folk, about whom she knew very little. When his 
frown had sunk as much as it could, it rebounded and became 
a bitter laugh.
    She knew the meaning of that sound.
    "It's the truth. I will show you the way. I will take 
you to Phyrexia-though, it's only fair to tell you that 
avengers stand guard around the Fourth Sphere ambulator 
fields and we'll be destroyed on the spot."
    "It's gone. It's gotten away," her rescuer said, still 
laughing.
    "The ambulator's nether end should be there-unless you 
let the searcher get away. The diggers, they don't know how 
to roll an ambulator, and the bearers can't."
    Xantcha tried to rise and felt light-headed, felt light 
all over. It was not an unprecedented feeling. Every time 
she stepped into a new world there were changes: a 
different texture to the air, a different color to the 
light, a different sense between her feet and the ground. 
She took a deep breath to confirm her suspicions.
    "The hill and shelter are where I remember them, but I 
am not any place that I remember?"
    "Yes, my clever child, I brought you here, and I will 
take you back. The hill is there, but the shelter and this 
ambulator of which you speak, alas, is not."
    Xantcha thought she understood. "You drew the prime end 
through itself to bring me to this place?" She hesitated, 
but this man who had rescued her deserved the truth. "If 
you unanchored the ambulator, I don't know if I can take 
you to Phyrexia. I've seen the searcher-priests set the 
stones for Phyrexia, but I've never set them myself. I 
don't know what our fate will be if I set them wrong, but 
I'll go first."
    "No, child, you will not go first," he said, grim and 
serious. "Though you have every reason to condemn Phyrexia, 
you have become a traitor to them, and traitors can never 
be trusted, must never be trusted."
    Traitor. The word roused a hundred others from 
Xantcha's dreams. She supposed it was a truthful word, 
though not as truthful as it would have been if she weren't 
a newt who'd never been compleated. Insofar as kin pricked 
her conscience, it was safe to say that she had none.
    "I was Orman'huzra when you found me, second of the 
dodgers. What is my position now? What is yours? What do I 
do, if I cannot be trusted and I cannot go first?"
    The man paced the small, stark chamber in which she'd 
awakened. His eyes burned as he walked, reminding Xantcha 
of Gix. She lowered her head when he stopped in front of 
her. He put his hand beneath her chin to raise it. Her 
instinct was to resist, to avoid those eyes as she had 
avoided the eyes of Gix, but he overcame her resistance. 
Her rescuer had a demon's strength.
    "Orman'huzra. That is not a name. What is your name?"
    "In my dreams, I am Xantcha."
    The answer failed to please him. Fingers tightened on 
either side of her jaw. She closed her eyes, but that made 
no difference. The many-colored light from his eyes burnt 
like fire in her thoughts.
    "Your mind is empty, Xantcha," he said after an 
agonizing moment. "The Phyrexians took it all away from 
you."
    He was wrong. Were it not for what the Phyrexians-Gix 
in particular-had done to her, Xantcha was sure she would 
have died right then. She didn't correct her new companion, 
no more than she'd corrected Gix, and took no small 
satisfaction in the knowledge that the sanctuary she'd 
created, when Gix had confronted her, remained intact.
    "What is my place? What is yours?" she asked for the 
second time. "What do you dor
    "My place was Lord Protector of the Realm, and I failed 
to do what I should have done. You may call me Urza."
    There were images for the word Urza, hideous images. 
Xantcha heard the voice of a teacher-priest: If you meet 
Urza, destroy him. The man in front of her didn't resemble 
the image. Even if he had, Xantcha would have denied the 
imperative. She wasn't about to destroy an enemy of 
Phyrexia.
    "Urza," she repeated. "Urza, I will show you what I 
know of the ambulators."
    Xantcha tried to rise from her pallet. The ambulator 
had to be beyond the chamber's closed door. It was too 
large for the chamber itself. She got as far as her knees. 
In addition to feeling light, she was weak. But there were 
no marks on her body. Her wounds had healed. Xantcha didn't 
understand; she'd been weak before, but never without 
wounds.
    "Rest," Urza told her, offering her the corner of the 
blanket. "You have been very sick. Many days-at least a 
month-have passed since I brought you here . . . but not 
through any ambulator. I did, as you suggest, let the 
searcher get away. My error, Xantcha. I did not suspect 
your ambulators and seeing your kind on that other plane, I 
thought you had 'walked there. My grievous error: the 
emptiness between the planes is no place for a child 
without the necessary spark. You were less than a breath, 
less than a heartbeat, from death before I got you here-
which is not where I'd intended to bring you.
    "Do not touch that door!" he warned, then had an 
inspiration and pointed his forefinger at it.
    The wood glowed and became dull, gray stone, like the 
rest of the chamber.
    "The Phyrexians changed you Xantcha, and I could not 
undo their changes, but without what they did, you would 
not have lived long enough for me to do anything at all. 
This place is safe for you. It has air and a balance of 
heat and cold. Outside, there is nothing. Your skin will 
freeze and your blood will boil. Without the spark, you 
will not survive. Do you hear me, Xantcha? Can your empty 
mind understand?"
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Xantcha had had no sense of modesty, not so soon after 
leaving Phyrexia, and the air in the chamber was 
comfortably warm, yet she'd clutched the blanket tight 
around her naked flesh-the same as she clutched it 
millennia later in a cold, dark cottage room while sleet 
pelted the roof overhead. Her empty mind never had a 
problem understanding Urza's words. It was the implications 
that often left her reeling.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    "I understand," she assured Urza. "This is my place and 
I will remain here. But I do not know about months. I know 
days and seasons and years. What is a month?"
    Urza closed his eyes and, after a dramatic sigh, told 
her about the many ways in which born-folk measured time. 
Xantcha told him that Phyrexia was a place where time went 
unmeasured. There was no sun by day nor stars by night. The 
First Sphere sky was an unchanging featureless gray. All 
the other spheres were nested within the First Sphere. Gix 
had been dropped into a fumarole that descended to the 
Seventh Sphere. The Ineffable dwelt in the ninth, at 
Phyrexia's core.
    "Interesting," Urza said. "If you're telling the truth. 
I have heard the name Gix before, on my own plane, where it 
was the name of a mountain god before the Phyrexians stole 
it. In fifty years of searching, I have heard the name Gix 
many times. I've heard the name Urza, too, and several that 
sound like Sancha. There are only so many sounds that our 
mouths can make, so many words, so many names. At best, 
language is confusion. If you are to be useful to me, you 
must never He. Are you telling me the truth, child?"
    She nodded and added, truthfully, "I am not a child." 
The image was quite clear in her mind; the world for which 
she had been destined-the world to which she had not gone-
had children. "Children are born. Children grow. Phyrexians 
are decanted by vat-priests and compleated by the tender-
priests. When I was decanted, I was exactly as I am now. I 
was not compleated, but I was never a child. Gix said he 
made me."
    Urza shook his head sadly. "It is tempting, very 
tempting to believe that there is only one Gix, but I have 
made that mistake before. It is just a sound, a similar 
sound, filled with lies. You do not remember what you were 
before the Phyrexians claimed you, Xantcha, and that is 
just as well. To remember what you had lost..." He closed 
his eyes a moment. "You would not be strong enough. By your 
race, I'd say you were twelve, perhaps thirteen- " He shook 
a thought out of his mind and began to pace. "You were 
born, Xantcha. Life is born or it is not life. Not even the 
Phyrexians can change that. They steal, they corrupt, and 
they abominate, but they cannot create.
    "You remember the decanting, and I am grateful that you 
remember nothing before that because I am certain that you 
were most horribly transformed. In my wanderings I have 
seen men and women in many variations, but I have never 
seen one such as you, who is neither."
    Urza continued pacing the small chamber. He wouldn't 
look at her, which was just as well. Xantcha knew many 
words for madness and delusion, and they all described 
Urza. He had rescued her-saved her life-and he had strange 
powers, not merely in his glowing eyes, but an odd sort of 
passion that left her believing for a few distracted 
heartbeats that she had been born on the world at the 
bottom of her memories.
    Xantcha ached in the missing places when Urza described 
her as neither man nor woman. After Gix's excoriation, 
while she'd hidden among the gremlins, she'd had 
opportunity to observe the differences between the two 
types of born-folk: men and women. If Urza was right, she 
had even more reason to wage war against Phyrexia.
    But Urza had to be wrong. He didn't know Phyrexia. He'd 
never peeked into a vat to see the writhing shape of a 
half-grown newt. He'd never seen tender-priests throwing 
buckets of rendered flesh into those vats. Meat-sludge was 
the source of Xantcha's memories, meat-sludge and Gix's 
ambition. Nothing had been taken from her. She was empty, 
as Urza had told her, filled with memories that weren't her 
own.
    Urza confirmed Xantcha's self-judgment as he paced. 
"Yes, it is better that you don't remember, better that 
your mind is empty and you have no imagination left that 
would fill it. Mishra knew what he had become, and it drove 
him mad. I will keep you, Xantcha, and avenge your loss as 
I avenge my brother. You will stay here."
    Xantcha didn't argue. She was in a chamber that had 
neither windows nor doors. Her companion was a man-demon 
with glowing eyes. There was nothing at all to be gained by 
argument. Still, there was at least one question that had 
to be asked:
    "May I eat?"
    Urza stopped pacing. His eyes darkened to a mortal 
brown. "You eat? But, you're Phyrexian."
    She shrugged and chose her words carefully. "They 
didn't take that. I ate from a cauldron when I was in 
Phyrexia, but I scrounged when I was excavating. I can 
scrounge here, if you'll show me where the living things 
are."
    "Nothing lives here, Xantcha."
    Urza muttered under his breath. His hands began to glow 
as his eyes had. He strode to the nearest wall and thrust 
his fingers into what had appeared to be solid stone. The 
glow transferred to the stone. The chamber filled with the 
hot, acrid smells Xantcha remembered from the furnaces. She 
eased backward, blindly clutching the blanket, as if it 
could protect her. There was a hollow in the wall now, and 
a radiant mass seething in Urza's hands.
    "Bread," Urza said when the seething mass had cooled.
    Xantcha had scrounged bread on a few of the worlds the 
searcher-priests had sent her to. The steaming loaf Urza 
handed her looked like bread and smelled a bit like bread, 
a bit more like overheated dust. Its taste was dusty, too, 
but she'd eaten worse, much worse, and gorged without 
complaint.
    "Do you want more?"
    She didn't answer. Want was an empty notion. Newts 
didn't want. Newts took what they could, what was 
available, and waited for another opportunity-which might 
come soon, or might not. Urza faded until he was a pale, 
translucent shadow; then he was gone. A heartbeat later, 
the chamber's light was gone, too.
    Every world Xantcha had seen had spun to its own 
rhythms, and though she hadn't acquired an instinctive 
sense of day becoming night, she'd learned enough about 
time to be desperately afraid of the dark. She was ravenous 
when Urza finally returned, exhausted because she'd feared 
to close her eyes lest she sleep through his reappearance, 
and bleeding where she'd pinched herself to keep awake. 
Taking all her risk at once, Xantcha sprang across the 
chamber. She clung ferociously to Urza's sleeve.
    "I won't remain here! Bring back the door. Let me out 
or destroy me!"
    Urza stared at her hands. "I brought you something. 
Swallow it, and I can, as you say, bring back the door."
    He held out his free arm and opened his hand which held 
a nearly transparent lump about half the size of her fist. 
Xantcha had eaten worse meals in the Fane of Flesh, but she 
didn't think Urza was offering her supper.
    "What is it?" she asked, not letting go with either 
hand.
    "Consider it a gift. I went back to the plane where I 
found you. The Phyrexians were careful to clean up after 
themselves, but I was more careful looking for them this 
time. I found a place where the soil had been transformed 
with black mana, much as you have been. So, I believe you, 
Xantcha. You are almost what you say you are, almost a 
Phyrexian. You believe the lies they told because when they 
transformed you they took your memory and your potential. 
You are a danger to others and to yourself but not to me. I 
will unlock your secrets and find answers I need for my 
vengeance."
    "I'll help," Xantcha agreed. She'd agree to anything to 
get out of the chamber. After that. . .
    After that would take care of itself.
    Letting go of his sleeve with one hand but not the 
other, she reached for the lump. Urza swung it beyond her 
reach.
    "You must understand, Xantcha, as much as you can 
understand anything. This is not bread to be wolfed down 
like a starving animal. This is an artifact. When you 
swallow it, it will settle in your stomach and harden into 
a cyst, a sort of stone that will remain there for as long 
as you live. Then, whenever we travel between planes or 
dwell on a plane where you could not otherwise survive, you 
will say a little rhyme that I shall teach you and yawn 
mightily at its end. The cyst will release an armor that 
will cover you completely to keep you alive."
    "You will compleat me?"
    Urza glowered. Xantcha felt him pursuing her thoughts, 
her suspicions about the cyst. He rummaged through her 
memories, yanking on them as if they were the loose ends of 
a stubborn knot. Did he believe Orman'huzra knew nothing 
about artifacts? She retreated into her private self.
    He sensed her escape. She saw the questions and 
displeasure on his face. Urza wasn't flesh, no more than 
Gix, but he had the habits of flesh and all the subtlety of 
a freshly decanted newt.
    "Like a rabbit flees into the brush," he said, and 
looked beyond the chamber. Tears leaked from Urza's eyes, 
especially his left eye. Then he shuddered, and the tear 
tracks vanished. "No, I don't compleat. That is 
abomination. My artifact will be inside you, because that 
is the best place for it, but is a tool, nothing more and 
never a part of you. Never! I cannot erase the memories of 
Phyrexia from your mind-and would not, because they will 
prove useful to my vengeance-but you are no longer 
Phyrexian, and you must not think of Phyrexian 
abominations."
    "Artifacts are tools," she recited as she would have 
once recited to the teacher-priests. A tool that she would 
swallow, but that would remain in her belly forever but 
without becoming a part of her. It wasn't reasonable, but 
reason wasn't important to a Phyrexian, and she would be 
Phyrexian forever.
    Urza let the lump flow into her hand. It was cold and 
clinging. Xantcha's stomach churned in protest. Gagging, 
she lost her grip on Urza's sleeve and nearly dropped the 
artifact as well.
    "Swallow it whole. Don't chew on it!"
    "Waste not, want not," Xantcha muttered. "Waste not, 
want not."
    She raised her hand to her mouth and nearly fainted. 
She tried again, breathing out as she raised her hand. The 
artifact quivered and darkened. Then she closed her eyes 
and slurped it down without inhaling. It stuck in her 
throat. She slapped her hands over her lips, fighting the 
instinct to spit the lump across the chamber.
    For something that was only a tool, Urza's artifact 
felt alive as it oozed down Xantcha's throat, got 
comfortable in her gut, and hardened into a stone. She was 
on her knees, banging her forehead on the floor when the 
horrifying process finally stopped.
    "See? All over. Nothing to it."
    She rested her head on the floor another moment before 
pushing herself upright.
    "I'm ready."
    Her voice felt different. The artifact had deposited a 
trail as it had moved down her throat. It still clung to 
her teeth and tongue. She coughed into her hand and studied 
drops of spittle that glistened briefly then turned to 
white powder. Urza taught her the rhyme that would release 
the cyst's power. Pressure built in her gut as she repeated 
it. The yawn that followed was involuntary, and the 
sensation of an oily liquid surging from within, covering 
her completely within two heartbeats, would have driven her 
to hysteria if it had lasted for a third.
    Urza clutched her wrists. The cyst's liquid-her armor- 
tingled. He began to fade and, looking down, Xantcha saw 
herself fading as well.
    She'd barely begun to scream when her substance was 
restored, covered by clothing less fine than Urza's, but 
finer than the rags she'd known all her life. Tempted to 
fondle the dark blue sleeve, she discovered it was 
illusion, visible but intangible.
    "Later," Urza assured her. "Not long. I won't have a 
naked companion. Look upon this . . . Tell me: Have you 
ever seen its like beforeT
    Xantcha gathered her wits. They stood on a bare-rock 
plain. The sky was a cloudless pale blue; light came from 
an intensely white sun-star so high overhead that she 
thought she should have been hot and sweating. Yet the 
plain was cold, the wind colder. She could hear the wind 
and see the dust it raised. When she thought about it, 
Xantcha wasn't at all sure how she knew it was cold. With 
Urza's armor surrounding her, she felt nothing against her 
skin. The sensation, or lack of sensation, so intrigued her 
that Urza had to clear his throat twice before she saw the 
dragon.
    "With that," he said, pride evident in his voice, "I 
shall destroy Phyrexia."
    The dragon was dead black in the sunlight. Xantcha 
walked closer until she was certain that it was, indeed, 
made from a metal, though even when she touched a pillar-
like hind leg, she couldn't say which metal. It was bipedal 
in structure, and her head came barely to its bent knees. 
Its torso, as yet unfinished, was a maze of tanks and 
tubes.
    "Naphtha," Urza explained before she asked her 
question. "Phyrexians, the Phyrexians I mean to destroy, 
are sleeked with oil. They burn."
    Xantcha nodded, recalling the Fourth Sphere lakes of 
slag and naphtha and the screams that sometimes arose from 
them. Scaffolding struts extruded from the dragon's 
counterbalancing tail. She seized one. Urza warned her to 
be careful; she had no intention of being anything else, 
but he'd asked a question and she meant to give him an 
honest answer.
    The cyst-made armor moved with her however Xantcha 
contorted herself, even hanging by one knee to get a better 
look at the claws on the dragon's somewhat short arms. If 
its arms were short, its teeth were long and varied: sharp 
spikes, razor-edge wedges, rasps, and crushing anvils, all 
cunningly geared so that whoever sat in the Urza-sized gap 
between the dragon's shoulders could bring his best metal 
weapons to bear on a particular enemy-if a gout of flaming 
naphtha proved insufficient to destroy them.
    More unfinished scaffolding rose above and behind the 
dragon's shoulders: protection, she guessed, for Urza, but 
possibly he intended to finish his engine with wings. She 
judged it little more than half finished and already 
heavier than anything she'd seen on the First Sphere. 
Perhaps he'd concocted a more potent fuel than glistening 
oil. Xantcha finished her exploration without finding the 
source of the engine's power.
    After dangling from the dragon's forearm, Xantcha 
dropped three or four times her height. She was out of 
practice, hitting her chin on her knee as she absorbed the 
impact. Her Up should have been a bloody mess. She was 
pleasantly impressed with Urza's gift, but as for his 
dragon . . .
    "If you had a hundred of them-" Her voice was 
definitely thicker, deeper, and distant-sounding to her 
armor-plugged ears. "You could take one of the Fanes and 
hold it against the demons, but not against the Ineffable."
    "You don't appreciate what this is, Xantcha. I have 
built a dragon ten times stronger than anything Mishra or I 
had during our misbegotten war. When it is finished, not 
even the Thran could stand against it."
    Xantcha shrugged. She didn't know the Thran. "It will 
have to be very powerful, then, when it is finished."
    "You have been blinded, Xantcha, by what they did to 
you, by what you can't remember, but they are not as 
powerful as they've made you believe. When my dragon is 
finished-when I've found the rest of what I need-"
    "Found?" Her scavenging curiosity had been aroused. 
"You found this? You did not make it, as you made the bread 
and tool?"
    "I found the materials, Xantcha, and I shaped them to 
my needs. To make a dragon like this, to make it as I made 
your bread . . . even for me it would be exhausting, and in 
the end-" Urza lowered his voice-"not quite real."
    Xantcha cocked her head.
    "That bread filled your stomach and was nutritious. It 
would keep you alive, but you wouldn't thrive on it-at 
least, I don't think you would. When I was a man, I could 
not have thrived on it. Things that are made, whether they 
are made from nothing or something else, no matter how well 
made they are, aren't quite real. It's easier-better-to 
start with something similar to what you want to have at 
the end and change it, little by little."
    "Compleat it?"
    "Yes-" Urza began, then stopped suddenly and stared 
harshly at her, eyes a-shimmer. "No. Compleation is a 
Phyrexian taint. Do not use that word. Only artifacts can 
be made. Everything else must be born, must live and grow."
    Xantcha studied her companion with equal intensity, 
though her eyes, of course, could not sparkle. "We were 
taught that the Ineffable made Phyrexia."
    "Lies, Xantcha. They told you lies."
    "I was told many lies," she agreed.
    Urza took her wrists again.
    "Until now," he said, "I have dwelt here beside my 
greatest artifact, but now that I have taken charge of you, 
I will have to have a dwelling in a more hospitable place. 
It is no great inconvenience. For every hospitable plane 
there are several out-of-the-way planes such as this. While 
these plains have supplied me with the ores I needed for my 
dragon's bones, they aren't where power-stones are to be 
found."
    Xantcha had started to ask what a powerstone was when 
her armor began to tingle and Urza began to grow 
transparent in the stark sunlight. They were underway 
before Xantcha could ask where they were going, and though 
she'd already guessed that her image for a world was the 
same as Urza's image for a plane, getting dragged from one 
world to the next with his hands clamped around her wrists 
was worse than sinking through the ambulators.
    Whether her eyes were open or closed, Xantcha saw the 
same many-colored streaks whirling around her. Every sense, 
every perception was stretched to its opposite extreme and 
held there for what might have been a single moment or 
might have been eternity. The silence was deafening, the 
cold so intense she feared she'd melt, the viselike 
pressure so great she feared she'd explode. And, to 
complete the experience, when Urza finally released 
Xantcha, her clinging armor transformed abruptly into a 
layer of white paste.
    Pushed past her limit, Xantcha gave into the panic and 
terror, clawing the residue as she ran blindly away from 
Urza. She tripped, as was inevitable, and fell hard enough 
to knock the wind from her. Urza knelt and touched her. The 
armor residue was gone in an instant.
    "I tested it on myself," he explained. He helped her to 
her feet and laid his hands on her scrapes and bruises, 
healing them with gentle heat.
    Xantcha had endured much in her unmeasured life, none 
of it gentle. She pulled away when she could and realized 
he'd brought her back to the place where she'd been beaten. 
Parting her lips, she tasted the air; the tang of 
glistening oil was faint, stale.
    "They're gone," she said.
    "And not long after I rescued you. The locals would not 
know the Phyrexians had ever been here. I would not have 
known, if I had not found them first. This is the place, 
the very place, where they brought you and where the last 
of them stood before leav-ing."
    Urza scuffed the ground with his boot. There was 
nothing visibly different, but movement released the scent 
of glistening oil to the air.
    "It is a familiar place for you, isn't it? You lived 
here, found food here. Conquer your nightmares, Xantcha. 
The Phyrexians will not return. They are cowards, Xantcha; 
they only prey upon the weak. They grasped my brother, but 
they never came to me. They know me, Xantcha, and they will 
not return. This will be the place where you can dwell 
while I complete my dragon, the place where you can lay out 
your wretched memories for my understanding."
    Xantcha tried to understand her new companion and 
failed. He was wrong, simply wrong, about so many things, 
yet he had the power to walk between worlds. No Phyrexian, 
not even a demon like Gix, could do that. Urza did not give 
orders, not in a Phyrexian sense. Still, Xantcha had no 
alternative but to obey him as she'd obeyed Gix, silently 
and without grace. She started up the path to the caves.
    "Where are you going?"
    Let him haul her back; he had that power. Or let him 
follow, which he did.
    The cave was sealed, of course, and carefully, with 
stones, dirt, and plant life. The locals, as Urza had 
called them, wouldn't know the treasures of their ancestors 
had been plundered, but Xantcha knew. She began pulling 
weeds and hurling dirt with her bare hands.
    Urza intervened. "Child, what are you doing?"
    "I'm not a child," she reminded him. "They brought me 
here to extract an army. If it's gone, then you may be 
right that no Phyrexian will return. If it's not..." 
Xantcha went back to work.
    "You'll be digging forever," Urza pulled her aside. 
"There are better ways."
    For a moment, Urza stood stock-still with his eyes 
closed. When he opened them, they blazed with crimson 
light. A swirling cloud, about twice his height, bloomed in 
the air before the cave's sealed mouth. He spoke a single 
word whose meaning, if it had any, Xantcha didn't know, and 
the cloud rooted itself where she had been digging.
    Fascinated, Xantcha attempted to put her hand in the 
small, bright windstorm. Urza touched her arm, and she 
could not move.
    "We will come back tomorrow and see what is to be seen. 
Meanwhile, we will find food-it has been too long since I 
have enjoyed a meal-and you will begin telling me 
everything you remember."
    Urza took Xantcha's wrists and pulled her into the 
between- worlds before she could recite her armor-releasing 
rhyme. The journey lasted less than a heartbeat, less than 
an airless breath. They emerged in what Urza called a town, 
where Xantcha found herself surrounded by born-folk: all 
flesh, like her, all different, too, and chattering a 
language she couldn't understand. He took her to an inn, 
gave orders in the born-folk language, told her to sit in a 
chair as he did, to drink from a cup and to use a knife and 
fork rather than her fingers when she ate.
    It was difficult, but Urza was adamant. Xantcha ate 
until the knife, at least, was comfortable in her hands.
    Later, there was music, exactly as Xantcha had dreamed 
it would be, and dancing which she would have joined if 
Urza had not said:
    "Too soon, child. Your eyes are open, but you do not 
truly see."
    When the music and dancing had ended, Urza led her from 
the inn to the night and through the between-worlds to the 
forest. He was gone when Xantcha awoke, long after sunrise. 
The scent of glistening oil was stronger, wafting down from 
the cave. She remembered the knife and wished she still had 
it in her hand, even though it would have been useless 
against a Phyrexian ... or Urza.
    Urza was inside the cave, and so were most of the 
artifacts. Tiptoeing to the brink of an excavation trench, 
Xantcha watched Urza dismantle one of the insect warriors. 
He was faster and more powerful. When its mandible claws 
closed over his ankle, they shattered. Antennae whips 
burned and melted when they touched his face.
    Perhaps one dragon would be enough, if it was Urza's 
dragon, with Urza sitting between its shoulders.
    Xantcha cleared her throat. "They're coming back. They 
wouldn't have left all this behind. Waste not, want not, 
that's our way."
    Urza leapt into the air and hovered in front of her. 
"The Phy-rexian way is not your way, Xantcha, not anymore, 
but otherwise, yes, I believe you're right. I'm ready for 
them tomorrow, though let us hope it isn't so soon. With 
time to study these automata, I'll be more than ready for 
them, Xantcha. These could almost be Thran design. They're 
pure artifice, no sentience at all, but perfectly adaptive. 
Look!" He held up a pearlescent ring. "A powerstone that 
isn't a powerstone. There is water in here, light, and 
simple mana, the essence of all things. I shall call it 
phloton, because it burns without consuming itself. It will 
give me power for my dragon! More power than I ever 
dreamed! I shall redesign it!
    "Vengeance, Xantcha. I shall take vengeance for both of 
us. When the Phyrexians return, I will destroy them and 
pursue them all the way back to Phyrexia itself."
 
                        CHAPTER 10
 
    Urza got his wish. The Phyrexians didn't return to the 
cave the next day, or the next after that. Seasons passed, 
and years. He dismantled the insect warriors, incorporating 
their parts into his redesigned dragon, linking their ring-
shaped hearts into a single great power source.
    Ten years passed, ten Domination years, according to 
Urza who claimed his attachment to his birth-world remained 
so strong that at any time he knew the sun's angle and the 
moon's phase above the cave he called Koilos, the Secret 
Heart.
    "Come," Urza said one winter morning when Xantcha would 
have preferred to remain in her nest of pillows and 
blankets. "It is finished."
    He held out his hand and, with a rhyme and a yawn, 
Xantcha clasped it. No more screaming through the between-
worlds. She'd mastered her fears and the cyst in her 
stomach. Although she dwelt mostly in the forest where the 
Phyrexian portal had been laid out and where a cottage with 
a chicken coop and garden now stood Urza had insisted that 
she accompany him to every new world he discovered. Her 
nose for Phyrexians was indisputably better than his.
    There were no Phyrexians on the world where Urza had 
built and rebuilt his dragon. There was no life at all and 
never had been. Una's new dragon wasn't much taller than 
the old one, but he'd borrowed from the insect-warriors. 
The new dragon had a spider's eight-legged body. Any two of 
the eight legs could be the "front" legs, and any three 
could be destroyed without unbalancing it.
    The many-toothed head remained from the dragon's 
previous incarnation, but the short arms had been 
lengthened, and the torso rotated freely behind whichever 
pair of legs led the rest. In addition to gouts of blazing 
naphtha, the new dragon spat lightning bolts and spheres of 
exploding fire.
    "Phloton," Urza said, rubbing his hands together. 
"Unlimited power!"
    Urza demonstrated each weapon, and though Xantcha still 
thought a hundred lesser war machines would be more 
effective, she was awed by the destruction Urza's new 
dragon brought to the barren, defenseless world. The sky 
was streaked with soot and dust. Slag lakes of amber and 
crimson pocked the plains. Everything that wasn't molten 
had been charred. It reminded her of nothing more or less 
than Phyrexia's Fourth Sphere, and she didn't think even a 
demon could stand against it. There was only one not-so-
small problem.
    "It's too big. It won't fit through an ambulator." "It 
won't need an ambulator. It can walk the planes directly. 
Even you could guide it safely." "I wouldn't know where to 
go."
    Xantcha had conquered her fears, but no matter how hard 
she tried, she couldn't orient herself in the between-
worlds emptiness. Worlds-planes-didn't call out to her the 
way they called out to Urza. If she lost her grip on Urza's 
hand, she fell like a stone to whatever world would have 
her. Urza's armor kept her alive through one failure after 
another, until Urza conceded that she'd never 'walk the 
planes.
    "You won't have to do anything at all," Urza assured 
her. "After I've used the ambulator once, I'll know where 
Phyrexia is, and I'll 'walk the dragon there. You'll wait, 
safe and snug, until I return. Now, watch!"
    Between blinks, Urza shifted from beside Xantcha to the 
dragon's saddle-seat. It came to life. No, not life, 
Xantcha reminded herself, never life! The dragon was an 
artifact, the tool of Urza's vengeance against the 
abominations of Phyrexia. Never mind that its eyes went 
from dark to blazing or that a ground-shaking roar 
accompanied each lightning bolt. The dragon was merely a 
tool that took aim at an already blackened hill and reduced 
it to slag in less time than it would have taken Xantcha to 
eat her breakfast.
    "Do you still have doubts?" Urza asked when he'd 
returned to her side.
    "Mountains don't defend themselves."
    Urza took her words for a jest. His laughter rang 
between-worlds as he whisked her back to the forest 
cottage.
    With the dragon finished, there was little to do but 
wait for the Phyrexians to return, and for Urza, waiting 
was difficult. Though he'd long since pried every story she 
was willing to tell from her memory, he continued to quiz 
her. How high were the First Sphere mountains? Where were 
the Fanes, the arenas? Which priests were the most 
dangerous and where did they dwell? Were the iron wyverns 
solitary creatures or pack hunters? In the Fourth Sphere, 
were the furnaces clumped together or did each stand alone? 
And were the fumaroles wide enough to allow his dragon to 
descend directly to the interior, or would he have to 
dismantle Phyrexia like a puzzle box?
    Worse than the questions were the nights, about one in 
four or five, when Urza closed his eyes. Urza's terrible 
dreams were too large for his mind. His ghosts walked the 
forest when he slept, recreating a silent drama of anger 
and betrayal. Xantcha had built the cottage to protect 
herself from his dreams, but no wall was thick enough to 
insulate her from his anguish.
    Urza's call for vengeance was something a Phyrexian 
could understand. From the beginning Xantcha's life had 
been full of threats and reprisals, broken promises and 
humiliation, but Urza needed more than vengeance. When his 
nightmares reached their inevitable climax, he'd cry out 
for mercy and beg someone he called Mishra to forgive him.
    Urza wouldn't talk about his nightmares, which got 
worse once the dragon was complete. He wouldn't answer 
Xantcha's questions about the ghosts or their world or, 
especially, about Mishra, except to say the Phyrexians 
would pay for what they'd done to Mishra, or through 
Mishra-Xantcha couldn't be sure which. Whenever she dared 
mention the nightmare name, Urza would fly into a bleak 
rage. Ten or twelve days might pass without a word, without 
even a gesture. Then, without warning, he'd rouse from his 
stupor, and the questions would begin again.
    Xantcha began to look forward to the times when 
restlessness got the better of Urza and he'd head off 
between-worlds, still hoping to stumble across Phyrexia, or 
an excavation team with its precious ambulators. He'd be 
gone for a month, even a season, and her life would be her 
own.
    Long before the dragon was finished, Xantcha had 
learned how to control the substance that emerged from her 
cyst and expand it into a buoyant sphere instead of the 
clinging armor Urza had intended. Seated in the sphere, 
she'd traveled an irregular circuit of the hamlets and 
farms surrounding the forest, learning the local dialects 
and trading with women who accepted her claim that she 
lived with "an old man of the forest."
    She still visited the local women, albeit carefully, 
lest they notice that she wasn't growing older the way they 
were, but with Urza gone for longer periods of time Xantcha 
gradually expanded her horizons. She was, after all, 
following Urza's orders. He didn't want her to remain near 
the cave while he was gone. Urza reasoned that Phyrexians 
might take her by surprise, extract his secrets from her 
empty mind, then ambush him when he returned. He designed 
an artifact that was attuned to his eyes. Though small 
enough to be worn as a sparkling pendant, the artifact 
could send a signal between-worlds.
    "Come back frequently," he'd told Xantcha when he hung 
the jewel around her neck. "If they've returned, hide 
yourself far, far away from here, then break the crystal 
and I will return for my- for our-vengeance. Above all, 
once you've seen a Phyrexian, stay away from the forest 
until I come for you. Don't let your curiosity lead you 
into foolishness. If they find you, they will reclaim you, 
and you will betray me. You wouldn't want that to happen."
    Twelve winters, twelve summers, and Urza still spoke to 
her as if she couldn't think for herself or hear through 
his lies. She swore she'd do as he asked. Whatever his 
reasons were, Xantcha didn't want to come face-to-face with 
anything Phyrexian, even though she suspected Urza wouldn't 
come back for her after he dealt with Phyrexia.
    Urza's demands weren't a burden. The chaos and 
subtleties of born-folk societies fascinated her. Giving 
herself to the world's wind, Xantcha explored whatever 
struck her curiosity, so long as it didn't reek of 
Phyrexia's glistening oil. She learned to speak the born-
folk languages, to read their writing, when it existed. The 
warrior-cave had a hundred different names, all of them 
archaic, all of them curses. In the world's larger towns, 
where more folk knew their history, she discovered it was 
better to invent a completely false history for herself 
than to admit she had roots near the warrior-cave.
    After a few narrow escapes and near disasters, Xantcha 
decided that it was better to disguise herself as well. 
Born-folk had definite notion about the proper places of 
young men and women in their societies, and no place at all 
for a newt who was neither. An incorrigible lad, a rogue in 
the making, was an easier disguise than a young woman. At 
best when she wore a young woman's clothes, good-
intentioned folk wanted to swallow her into their families. 
At worst... at worst, she'd been lucky to escape with her 
life. But Xantcha did escape and, hardened by Phyrexia, 
there was nothing in a born-folks' world that daunted her 
for long.
    The forest world had one moon, which went from full to 
new to full again in thirty-six days. The born-folk marked 
time by their moon's phases, and Xantcha did, too, 
returning to the cave twice each month. Sometimes there was 
a message from Urza in the ruins of the neglected cottage. 
Sometimes he was there himself, waiting for her, eager to 
whisk her between-worlds to witness his latest 
accomplishment or discovery.
    Urza had no one else. Although he said there were 
others who could walk between planes, he avoided them and 
bom-folk alike.
    Without Xantcha, there were only ghosts to break his 
silence. If anything would lure Urza back to her after 
Phyrexia, Xantcha expected it would be loneliness.
    She pitied Urza; it seemed he'd lost more to his 
nightmares than he believed she'd lost to the Phyrexians. 
His artifact pendant was her most precious possession, a 
constant reminder that never left her neck. Yet, she was 
always a little relieved when she found the forest 
deserted, and except for one nagging worry, she would not 
have mourned the loss if Urza never reappeared in her life.
    The worry was her heart, the lump Xantcha had held in 
her hand when the vat-priests decanted her, the lump they'd 
taken from her moments later, as they took it from every 
other newt. It had slipped through her memory sometime 
after she'd become a dodger, but it resurfaced when she 
encountered the Trien.
    The Trien believed that their hearts could hold only so 
many misdeeds before they burst and consigned them to hell. 
To defend against eternal torment, the Trien purged their 
hearts of error through bloodletting and guilt dances. Urza 
had no more blood within him than a compleated Phyrexian, 
but she'd thought the guilt dance might defeat his 
nightmares, so she danced with the Trien-to test her 
theory-and in the midst of hysteria and ecstasy she'd 
remembered her own heart.
    Xantcha tried to convince herself that the tale the 
vat-priests had told her was merely another of their 
countless lies. Her heart hadn't been very big, and no 
matter who might have done the counting, her or the 
Ineffable, she'd made a lot of mistakes that hadn't killed 
her. But Xantcha had never been particularly persuasive, 
not with Urza nor with herself. For the first time 
Xantcha's dreams were filled with her own ghosts: newts and 
priests, a plundered wind-crystal of music and beauty, 
insect warriors with baleful eyes, and even Gix as the 
other demons shoved him through the Fourth Sphere fumarole.
    Worse than dreams, Xantcha began to worry what would 
happen if Urza succeeded, and all Phyrexia, including the 
heart vault beneath the Fane of Flesh, were destroyed.
    She conquered her nightmares and worries; obsession 
wasn't part of her nature. Still, when the time came, after 
nearly two hundred summers of waiting, that Xantcha found 
diggers, bearers, and a handful of gremlin dodgers in the 
forest cave, she didn't retreat before breaking Urza's 
crystal artifact.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Urza arrived with his dragon less than a day later and 
caught the Phyrexians by surprise. From her bolt-hole in 
the hill above the warriors' cave, Xantcha heard the 
gremlins screaming and counted the flashes as the diggers 
and bearers exploded.
    A handful of diggers made a stand in front of the cave. 
Urza toyed with them, tossing each again and again before 
crushing it. It was a display worthy of Phyrexia in its 
cruelty and single-minded arrogance. Xantcha couldn't 
watch. She looked away and saw, to her horror, a searcher-
priest not ten paces away. She thought it was hiding, 
though it was difficult to imagine any com-pleat Phyrexian 
seeking shelter among living trees and animals.
    Then insight struck. The searcher was fulfilling its 
destiny, watching an artifact Phyrexia would surely covet. 
Xantcha couldn't guess whether the priest had seen her 
before she saw it, but a moment later it began to run 
toward the ambulator, which it could-if it had the time and 
thought quickly enough-unan-chor and suck to Phyrexia 
behind it.
    Xantcha had no means to tell Urza that he was in danger 
of losing his way to Phyrexia and no reason to think she 
could stop the searcher-priest or even that she could catch 
it before it reached the ambulator, but if it paused to 
unanchor the nether end, she hoped she could delay it until 
Urza arrived. After a mnemonic yawn, she abandoned her 
bolt-hole.
    The searcher-priest had no intention of unanchoring the 
ambulator's nether end or even slowing down. It had a score 
of strides on Xantcha when its brass foot touched the black 
circle. With its second step, it crossed the midpoint and 
sank between-worlds. Too fast. Too fast, memory warned from 
the back of Xantcha's mind; the priests had told them to 
enter the ambulators slowly, lest they get caught between 
two worlds.
    Expecting an explosion, Xantcha skidded off the trail 
and hid behind the largest tree she saw. There was no 
explosion, but when she poked her head around the tree 
trunk fire rippled across the ambulator disk's surface. She 
had no idea if the priest had survived. For that matter, 
Xantcha didn't know if the ambulator had survived. Urza 
wouldn't welcome the sight of her, not when he'd told her 
to stay far away, but Xantcha thought it best to warn him. 
She stepped in front of the dragon when it burnt a path 
through the trees. Urza shot flame to the left of her and 
flame to the right. Xantcha ran until she was breathless, 
then circled back. The dragon sat beside the ambulator; the 
saddle-seat between its shoulders was empty.
    Urza had gone to Phyrexia alone.
    Xantcha settled down to wait. Morning became afternoon. 
The sky darkened, and the dragon's eyes shone red.
    Urza returned, not through the ambulator but in a blaze 
of lightning, and Xantcha did nothing to attract his 
attention as he remounted the dragon. Moments later they 
were gone.
    The storm ended quickly. The ambulator beckoned. It 
wasn't broken. For the last time, Xantcha asked herself:
    Was her heart important enough to risk everything to 
rescue it? The priests lied about so many things; only a 
fool could believe they hadn't lied about newt hearts. Try 
as she might, Xantcha couldn't remember exactly what hers 
had looked like; mottled amber, perhaps, with bright 
rainbow inclusions. She'd only seen it that once and never 
seen another. Only a fool. .. And she was a fool.
    On hands and knees, Xantcha crept up to the ambulator 
and was surprised to discover that the searchers had left 
the prime end in the forest. She began unanchoring it, 
careful not to disturb the hard panel where seven jet-black 
jewels were set in a silver matrix. When the ambulator was 
loose and rippling, Xantcha yawned. There was a single 
sharp pain in her gut as the cyst contracted- drawing the 
armor out twice in a single day wasn't what Urza had in 
mind when he made the cyst, but she could do it five times, 
at least, before the process failed. The not-quite-liquid 
flowed beneath her clothes.
    She stepped into the unanchored ambulator. It swirled 
around her, not unlike the armor itself. By the time she'd 
reached the middle, the black disk had shrunk to half its 
size and risen to her waist. Xantcha had repressed how much 
she disliked the ambulators. The sinking and suffocating 
was worse than following Urza between-worlds, and the cyst 
made the passage worse. It swelled in her gut; she thought 
she might explode before her head emerged in Phyrexia.
    Because she'd unanchored the prime end in the forest, 
the nether end in Phyrexia was also loose and shrank as 
Xantcha emerged. Any Phyrexian would have been suspicious 
of a newt who rolled up a ambulator behind it. The avengers 
that normally guarded the Fourth Sphere field, where scores 
of ambulators were anchored, would have annihilated her on 
sight, if there had been any left standing. Xantcha assumed 
that Urza had annihilated them as he emerged; at least, 
something had.
    Waste not, want not, the Fourth Sphere was even uglier 
than she remembered with acrid air and oily ash drizzling 
from the soot clouds overhead. The roar of a thousand 
furnaces was less a sound than a presence, a vise tightened 
over her ribs. The hollow where the ambulator had been 
anchored was bright with bilious yellows, noxious greens, 
and an iridescent purple that was the very color of 
disease. Nothing was alive, of course; it was just filthy 
oil, slicked over an eon of detritus not fit for even the 
furnaces.
    There wasn't a living Phyrexian, newt or otherwise, in 
sight.
    Grateful, but suspicious of her good fortune, Xantcha 
retrieved the glossy disk from beneath her feet: the 
rolled-up ambulator. Holding it by its flexible rim, she 
twisted her wrists in opposite directions. The disk rippled 
and shrank until it was scarcely larger than her palm, with 
the jewels protruding on both sides.
    After tucking the ambulator between her belt and her 
armor, Xantcha took her bearings. There was no sun-star for 
Phyrexia, especially not here, in the Fourth Sphere. Away 
from the furnaces, light came harsh, constant and without 
shadows. But the place was home, or it had been, and it 
came back to her.
    A few strides up the greasy slope, the horizon expanded 
and Xantcha saw why her return to Phyrexia had been so 
easy: straight ahead, in the direction of the Fane of 
Flesh, the soot clouds had turned red and fire fell from 
the sky.
    Urza? Xantcha asked herself and decided it was possible 
that Urza was burning his way through Phyrexia. The 
ambulators could be anchored anywhere. Once unrolled, they 
were tunnels, direct passages from one specific place to 
another, no detours allowed, but a 'walker made his own 
path here, there and everywhere. Urza could change his mind 
between-worlds, but whenever, wherever, he ended his 'walk, 
he stood on a world's surface. In Phyrexia, the surface was 
the First Sphere.
    When she'd dwelt in Phyrexia, before she'd known the 
meaning of silence, Xantcha had been able to ignore the 
furnace roar. She reached within herself to remember the 
trick and realized she'd been gone from Phyrexia several 
times longer than she'd been a part of it. But the memory 
was there. Xantcha numbed herself to the ambient rumbling 
and heard the clanging alarms.
    She smiled. Those alarms were struck when a furnace was 
about to blow. Every Phyrexian had an emergency place, and 
for newts that place was the Fane of Flesh, precisely where 
she wanted to go. Of course, the emergency wasn't a 
furnace, and the closer she got to the sprawled hulks of 
furnaces, fanes, and gremlin shanties, the clearer it was 
that in the absence of the expected disaster, panic had 
replaced plan.
    Priests and other compleated types that Xantcha didn't 
remember, and possibly, had never seen, raced through 
gremlin town. Their voices were shrill enough to hurt. The 
challenge was staying out of their way; the shambles were 
already littered with gremlins who'd failed.
    Urza's armor protected Xantcha from the sky; her sense 
of purpose did the rest. The Fane of Flesh wasn't the most 
impressive structure in the Fourth Sphere, but it stood 
near the glistening oil fountain, which had become a spire 
of blue-white flame.
    A phalanx of demons made their appearance while Xantcha 
threaded her way through the maze of furnaces. Narrow beams 
of amber and orange shot upward from their torsos, into the 
reddest clouds. Urza answered with lightning. In the Fourth 
Sphere's filthy skies, the air itself ignited and a web of 
fire shot to every part of the horizon. Xantcha felt the 
heat through her armor. Her instinct was to run, but ash 
quickly followed the fire, and the Fourth Sphere went dark.
    For a moment, flesh had the advantage over metal, at 
least flesh protected by Urza's armor. Neither ash nor 
smoke irritated Xantcha's eyes, and with a bit of effort 
she could see a body's length in front of her. As in the 
gremlin town alleys, the danger came from the panicked and 
the fallen: no one paid any attention to a stray newt, 
assuming they could see her.
    Then the demons regrouped. A low humming sound began in 
the distance, followed by a cold wind that scoured the air. 
As it passed overhead, Xantcha looked up and saw the bottom 
of the Third Sphere, a sight she'd never seen before. She 
saw the flames, too, where Urza had burnt through the outer 
spheres. Another few moments and Xantcha might have seen 
Urza's dragon, if she hadn't started to run for the Fane.
    The rusty doors on the far side of the Glistening 
Fountain were wide open as Xantcha entered the plaza where 
newts were compleated. She was in the final sprint for the 
Fane, when a vast shadow moved overhead. The last time 
Xantcha had seen Urza's new dragon, she hadn't noticed any 
wing struts and had assumed the artifact had grown too 
heavy for flight. She'd assumed incorrectly. Six of the 
dragon's eight legs supported wings that dwarfed the rest 
of its body and yet were highly flexible and maneuverable. 
The dragon swooped sideways to avoid a demon-flung bolt 
while belching a tongue of flame.
    A furnace exploded. Metal shards and slag traced 
brilliant arcs beneath the Third Sphere ceiling. Impressed 
by beauty that was also terrifying and deadly, Xantcha 
considered the possibility that Urza would win. Then a 
tree-sized clot of slag crashed into the plaza. The flames 
of the Glistening Fountain sputtered and died while yellow 
fumes rose from the new crater beside it. Unless Xantcha 
wanted to die with Phyrexia, she had to find her heart and 
unroll the ambulator while there was still a solid place 
left to support the prime end.
    Xantcha finished her run with no further distractions.
    "Down! Go down!" a jittery vat-priest insisted as soon 
as she cleared the open doors. "Newts go down!" Its hooks 
and paddles clattered against each other as it indicated a 
deserted corridor.
    The priests weren't flesh, but they weren't mindless 
artifacts, either. They might lack sufficient imagination 
to disobey a fatal command, but they had enough to be 
afraid.
    "I go," Xantcha replied, the first time she'd spoken 
Phyrexian in centuries. She bungled the pronunciation; the 
priest didn't seem to notice.
    She'd forgotten how big the Fane was. Maybe she'd never 
noticed; she'd never gone anywhere within it without a 
cadre of other newts and priests surrounding her. One 
corridor was as good as another when she had no idea where 
her heart might be, and the one the vat-priest had pointed 
toward was the broadest and best lit. She read the glyph 
inscriptions on the walls, hoping they would provide a 
clue, but they were only exhortations, lies, and empty 
promises, like everything else in Phyrexia.
    The Fane of Flesh was quieter, cleaner than anything 
beyond its precincts. Its walls had, so far, resisted the 
outside flames. But it had taken damage. Turning a corner, 
Xantcha came upon a pile of rubble from a collapsed ceiling 
and a defunct vat-priest crushed beneath it. She wrenched 
one of the priest's long hooks from its shoulder socket and 
kept going.
    A teacher-priest waited at another corner. Its eyes 
were flesh within a flat, bronze mask. They darted between 
the hook, Xantcha's face, her boots and her belt. "Newt?" 
it asked.
    Xantcha had taken the hook as a weapon, but the priest 
assumed it was part of her, that it and her leather 
garments, were evidence that she'd begun her compleation.
    "The hearts. Where are the hearts? I am sent to guard 
the hearts."
    Flesh eyes blinked stupidly. "Hearts? What matter the 
hearts?"
    "We are attacked; they are the future. I am sent to 
guard them."
    "Who sent you?" it asked after another moment's 
hesitation.
    "A demon," Xantcha replied. Small lies weren't worth 
the effort of defending them. "Where are the hearts? "
    The teacher-priest continued to blink. Xantcha feared 
it didn't know where the hearts were stored, not a 
confession one priest would want to make to another, 
especially another under a demon's command. It asked, 
"Which demon?" as thunder waves pummeled the Fane and rust 
rained from the ceiling.
    Xantcha had no time to wonder whether the strike was 
for Urza or against him. Gix was dead, thrust through a 
fumarole centuries ago. Still, any answer was better than 
none.
    "The Great Gix sent me."
    Her bluff worked. The teacher-priest just needed a 
name. It quaked as it gave her detailed directions to a 
vault so far beneath the Fourth Sphere floor it might 
actually have been on the Fifth. More blasts shook the 
Fane. A stairway she was supposed to use was clogged with 
debris and the scent of fire.
    "I'll have to tell Urza that he's wrong," Xantcha 
complained as she put her hand on the portal artifact 
tucked beneath her belt. "I wouldn't be standing here, 
waiting to die, if I didn't have some damn fool useless 
imagination."
    She could have gotten out. The corridor was wide enough 
to unroll the portal. She'd be back in the forest. Safe. Or 
not safe. Ambulators could only be rolled up from their 
prime end. If she left the ambulator's prime end here in 
the corridor and the Fane collapsed, the rubble might 
follow her to the forest ... all of Phyrexia might follow 
her.
    Waste not, want not! I never thought of that.
    When she used the ambulator to escape, it would be a 
three-step process: first to the forest to anchor the 
nether end, back to Phyrexia to loosen the prime, and then 
another passage back to the forest. Timing had become even 
more critical.
    Xantcha looked around for an intact stairway. She found 
one and found the vault, too. Measured by the world she'd 
left, Xantcha guessed she'd spent a morning in Phyrexia. 
Looking down at the mass of softly glowing hearts, she 
guessed it might take a lifetime to find her own.
    The Ineffable's plan for Phyrexia was precise, even 
rigid, but the plan didn't cover every contingency. Vat-
priests dutifully brought newt hearts to the vault, then 
simply heaved the little stones into a pit, one for every 
newt ever decanted. At the surface the pit was about twice 
the size of an unrolled ambulator. When she thrust the vat-
priest's hook into the chaos, it went in all the way to the 
shoulder gears without striking anything solid.
    The pit seethed. Countless glowing amber fists and a 
smaller number of dark ones were vibrating constantly 
against one another. On her knees, Xantcha could hear a 
steady chorus of sighs and gasps. She wondered about the 
dark ones and got lucky. She heard a pop! right in front of 
her, then watched as a glowing heart brightened, then went 
dark.
    Death?
    Phyrexians were dying in Urza's assault. Were their 
hearts, long detached from their compleated bodies, going 
dark as they did? Xantcha retrieved the newly darkened 
stone with the vat-priest's hook. Tiny scratches marred its 
surface: marks left as the heart stone clattered against 
its companions or a record of errors made by the Ineffable? 
She read the glyphs on the walls. They repeated the 
familiar teacher-priest lies.
    Xantcha picked up a glowing stone. Its warmth and 
subtlety was tangible even through Urza's armor. She picked 
up a second glowing heart and found it just as warm, just 
as subtle, yet also different. But every dark stone felt as 
inert as the first she had touched.
    The teacher-priests might not have told the whole 
truth, but they'd told enough. There was a vital bond 
between Phyrexians and their detached hearts. She hadn't 
been a total fool. There was good reason to rescue the 
stone she'd carried out of the vats.
    And precious little hope of finding it among all the 
others.
    Tears of frustration rolled down Xantcha's armored 
cheeks. They fumed when they landed on the glowing stones 
cradled in her lap. Another shudder rocked the Fane. When 
it ended, a score of hearts had popped and dimmed. More 
Phyrexian deaths to Urza's credit, but imagine what his 
dragon engine could do if Urza brought its weapons to bear 
where Xantcha sat. Imagine what she could do. The hearts 
weren't so hard that she couldn't break them, and if her 
tears could make the stones fume, what might her blood do 
if she chose to sacrifice herself for vengeance?
    She'd been willing to die for much less before Urza 
rescued her, but she'd come to the Fane of Flesh because 
she wanted to live.
    Choices and questions, all of them morbid, paralyzed 
Xantcha at the edge of the pit, and then she heard 
laughter. She scrambled to her feet, scattering hearts, 
crushing them in her frantic clumsiness. There was no one 
behind her. The laughter hadn't come from the corridor, it 
came from within . . . within her mind and within her 
heart.
    Throwing the hook aside, Xantcha waded in the pit, 
sweeping her open hands in front of her, moving toward the 
laughter. She found what she was looking for not far below 
the surface, neither in the middle nor at the pit's edge. 
There was nothing to distinguish it from any other heart 
stone-a few scratches, but no more than any other stone 
she'd touched, glowing or dark. Yet it was hers; it had to 
be hers: Urza's armor absorbed it as it lay in her hand.
    Another burst of popping hearts interrupted Xantcha's 
reverie. A hundred, perhaps several hundred, Phyrexians had 
died since she entered the vault, and the chamber was as 
bright as it had been when she entered. Xantcha tried to 
calculate how many glowing hearts lay on the surface, how 
many more might lay beneath. She gave up after a few 
attempts, but not before she'd decided that unless she told 
Urza about the heart vault, it would be a very long battle 
before he achieved vengeance.
    Her heart was too big to swallow, too risky to carry in 
her hand. Xantcha tucked it carefully inside her boot 
before she headed off.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Finding her way out of the Fane was harder than finding 
Urza. Flames, smoke and sorcery ratcheted through one-
quarter of what passed for the Fourth Sphere sky. While 
she'd been looking for her heart, the demons had mounted a 
counterattack.
    Urza's hulking dragon was surrounded by Phyrexia's 
smaller defenders: dragons, wyverns and whatever else had 
been summoned from the First Sphere through the very hole 
Urza had burnt for himself. As she'd warned him, 
individually Phyrexia had nothing that could equal his 
devastating tool, but in Phyrexia, individuals weren't 
important. For every compleated priest, even for every 
scrap-made digger or bearer, there were twenty warriors: 
fleshless, obedient, and relentless. The demons aimed the 
warriors at Urza's dragon where they died by the score and 
occasionally did damage.
    The dragon's wings were shredded and useless. Two of 
its legs had been disabled; a third burst into melting 
flames while Xantcha looked for a path through the 
Phyrexian lines. Urza could still defend himself in all 
quarters but if-when-he lost a fourth leg, there'd be gaps, 
and it wouldn't take imagination to exploit them.
    You're lost! Xantcha shouted silently, adding an image 
of the vault of hearts, There's a better way! 'Walk away 
now! But though Urza could easily extract thoughts from her 
mind, she'd never been able to insert her thoughts into 
his.
    There were hundreds of Phyrexians on the battlefield 
and even a few gremlins. All of them were in greater danger 
of being trampled by the relentless warriors than they were 
from anything in the dragon's arsenal, but their presence, 
a thin layer of chaos across the field, was Xantcha's best 
hope of getting to Urza.
    Relying on Urza's armor to protect her from everything 
except her own stupidity, Xantcha dodged fire, lightning 
and the distortions of sorcery as she threaded her way 
through the Phyrexian circle. Once she came face to back 
with a demon. It was dark and asymmetric, with pincers on 
one arm and a six-fingered hand on the other, and it had 
eyes in several places, including the back of its head. 
Nothing like Oix, except for the malice and intelligence in 
its shiny red eyes. It studied her from boots to hair and 
vat-priest hook. Xantcha was sure it knew she wasn't what 
she was pretending to be, and equally sure Urza's armor 
wouldn't protect her from its wrath.
    Just then a wyvern screamed, and the demon turned away.
    A wall of sharp, noxious yellow crystals exploded from 
the ground between Xantcha and the demon. She staggered 
back and watched the demon uncoil like an angry serpent, 
writhing toward the dragon. Urza's armor protected Xantcha 
from flames and emptiness and corrosive vapors, too. She 
followed the wall of crystals as it extended across 
Phyrexia's Fourth Sphere toward Urza and his dragon. If 
Urza struck down the wall, Xantcha was meat. If he didn't, 
it would claim the fourth leg from his dragon.
    But not before she swung up into the leg's scaffolding, 
climbing for her life and his.
    Xantcha made an easy target, running across the 
dragon's back, but nothing attacked. The Phyrexians 
overhead didn't recognize her as an enemy, and Urza's 
attention was centered on the noxious wall. Xantcha fell 
hard when the leg collapsed. Worse, there was blood on her 
hands when she hauled herself back up. Either her armor was 
weakening, or Urza was.
    She swung down between the dragon's shoulders expecting 
the worst.
    Urza reclined in a wire shrouded couch. Smoke rose from 
his charred trousers. The dragon's wounds were reflected on 
his body. Bruises, contusions-bleeding contusions-covered 
Urza's hands and face.
    Xantcha had never seen Urza hurt. She'd assumed he 
could be destroyed. She hadn't imagined that he could be 
wounded. She stood, confused and useless, for several 
moments before she found the courage to touch his shoulder.
    "Urza? Urza, it's time to 'walk away from here, if you 
can."
    No response.
    "Urza? Urza, can you hear me? It's me, Xantcha." She 
put some strength into her hand. The whole couch rocked a 
bit, but there was no response from Urza. He was still in 
control of the dragon, still fighting. As mindless as any 
of the wyverns, Urza had abandoned sentience and become the 
tool. "Listen to me, Urza! Vengeance is slipping away. 
You've got to leave now!"
    Urza's eyes opened. They were horrible to behold. He 
started to say the one word that would have been more 
horrible to hear than his eyes were to see, but he didn't 
finish: "Yawg- "
    The Ineffable. The name that must not be spoken. 
Xantcha knew it; they all knew it. It was with them in the 
vats. But Urza should not have known it. He'd never gotten 
anything out of Xantcha's mind that she had not been 
willing to give him, and she'd never have given him that.
    Every instinct said run, now, alone. Xantcha resisted. 
Urza had rescued her when she'd had no hope. She wouldn't 
leave him behind.
    Xantcha reached across the couch and took Urza's wrists 
as he so often took hers. She steeled her nerves and stared 
into his seething eyes. "Now, Urza. We've got to leave now. 
"Walk us somewhere safe-to the cave where you took me. And 
leave . . . leave that name behind."
    "Yawg-"
    "Xantcha!" she screamed her own name at his face.
    His hands grasped hers and her vision went black.
 
                        CHAPTER 11
 
    The supplies were stowed, safe against mist, mice, and 
anything else the changeable climate of Ohran Ridge might 
drop on the cottage. Xantcha had checked them twice during 
the interminable night. She'd made herself a pot of tea and 
drunk it all. The herbs should have helped her relax, but 
they hadn't. Dawn's golden light fell sideways on the bed 
where she hadn't slept.
    Her door was wide open, inviting shadows. Urza's 
wasn't. It wasn't warded with layers of "leave me alone" 
sorcery, but it wasn't leaking sound. The sounds had 
stopped coming through the wall in the unmeasured hours 
after midnight. Ratepe, Xantcha had told herself, had 
probably fallen asleep, and Urza rarely made noise when he 
was alone. Nothing unusual. Nothing to worry about. So why 
had she opened her door? Why had she spent the last of the 
night damp and shivering? Hadn't Ratepe demonstrated, if 
not an ability to take care of himself, then an inclination 
to ignore her advice?
    And hadn't Urza welcomed Ratepe more enthusiastically 
than she'd dare hope? Whatever had brought silence to the 
far side of the wall, it wouldn't have been murder. No 
matter how annoying Ratepe got, he'd survive.
    Xantcha unwound her blankets. Her joints creaked. 
Phyrexia was easier on flesh and bone than the Ohran Ridge. 
She broke the ice in her washstand, cleared her head with a 
few breathtaking splashes, then went outside and listened 
at the door. She'd give them until midday. If Ratepe hadn't 
reappeared by then, Xantcha planned to take a chisel to the 
cottage's common wall. Before that, she had one more gambit 
to try and put her chisel to work on the hardened ashes 
underneath her outdoor hearth.
    When the fire was just right Xantcha covered it with an 
iron grate and covered the grate with a rasher of bacon. A 
friendly breeze carried the aromas into the cottage. She 
never knew when or if Urza would be in a mood to eat, but 
if Ratepe was alive, he'd be out the door before the bacon 
burnt.
    Right on schedule Ratepe appeared in the doorway. "By 
the book! That smells good." He didn't have the cross-
grained look of a man who'd just awakened, and he said 
something-Xantcha couldn't hear what-over his shoulder 
before closing the door behind him. "I'm starving."
    "I see you survived." Xantcha hadn't realized how angry 
she was until she heard her own voice. "Here, eat. Starting 
tomorrow, you can cook your own." On his own hearth, too. 
Xantcha wasn't sharing, at least not until she'd calmed 
down.
    Ratepe had the sense to approach her cautiously. 
"You're angry about last night?"
    Xantcha slammed hot, crisp bacon on a wooden platter 
and thrust it at him. She didn't know why she was so upset 
and didn't want to discuss the matter.
    "I guess it got out of hand. When I saw him-Urza. He is 
Urza, the Urza, Urza the Artificer. You were right, you 
know. Back in Efuan Pincar, I didn't believe you. I thought 
maybe you thought he was Urza, but I didn't think he could 
be the Urza, the by-the-holy-book Artificer!" Ratepe paused 
long enough to inhale a piece of bacon. "I thought I'd been 
as scared as I could get before I met you, but that was 
before he touched me. Avohir! I swear I'll never be afraid 
again."
    "Don't make promises you can't keep."
    "There can't be anything scarier." Ratepe shook his 
head and shoved another piece into his mouth.
    This time he chewed before he swallowed. She was about 
to criticize his manners, but he was too fast for her.
    "He's Urza. Urza is Urza, the real Urza. And I'm 
Mishra. I'm talking to a legend, watching things, hearing 
things I can't imagine, because Urza-Urza the Artificer, 
straight out of The Antiquity Wars, thinks I'm his brother, 
Mishra the Mighty, Mishra the Destroyer, and we're going to 
put what's wrong back to rights again."
    Another pause. More bacon, more bad manners, but then 
he hadn't had manners before. His face was flushed and his 
eyes never stopped moving.
    "I'm Mishra. Avohir! I'm Mishra.... He tries to trick 
me sometimes, says things he doesn't believe, things I 
shouldn't believe. I have to watch him close ... watch him 
close. Did you see his eyes, Xantcha? Avohir! I think he's 
a little touched? But I stay ahead of him, nearly. I have 
to. I'm almighty Mishra-"
    Xantcha had had enough of Ratepe's babbling. She wasn't 
as fast as Urza, but she was fast enough to seize a would-
be Mishra by the neck of his tunic and whirl him against 
the nearest post. Damp debris from the thatching rained 
down on them both.
    "You are not Mishra, you merely pretend to be Mishra. 
You are Ratepe, son of Mideah, and the day you forget that 
will be the day you die, because he is Urza and you cannot 
hope to 'stay ahead of him.' Do you understand?"
    When a wide-eyed Ratepe didn't immediately say yes, 
Xantcha rattled his spine against the post. His chin bobbed 
vigorously. She released his tunic and stepped back. The 
greater part of her anger was gone.
    "I know who I am, Xantcha," Ratepe insisted, sounding 
more like himself, more like the youth Xantcha thought she 
knew. "I'm Rat, just Rat. But if I don't forget, just a 
little-when he looks at me, Xantcha-when Urza the Artificer 
looks at me, if I don't let myself believe I am who he 
thinks I am-who you told me to be- then . . ." He stared at 
the closed door. "When I saw his eyes. I never believed 
that part, Xantcha. It's not in The Antiquity Wars.
    Kayla wrote about Tawnos coming to tell her about how 
he'd seen Urza with the Weakstone and Mightstone embedded 
in his skull. She thought it was all lies, nice lies 
because Tawnos didn't want her to know the truth. The idea 
that the Weakstone or the Might-stone kept Urza alive, 
that's not even in Jarsyl. There's only one source for the 
stuff about Urza's eyes glowing with all the power of the 
sylex: four scraps of parchment bound by mistake at the 
back of the T'mill codex. They're supposed to be Tawnos's 
deathbed confession. My father said it was pure apocrypha. 
But it wasn't! Urza's eyes, they are the Weakstone and the 
Mightstone, aren't they? They're what've kept him alive, if 
Urza really is alive, if he's not just something the stones 
have created."
    Waste not, want not, Xantcha hadn't found Mishra the 
Destroyer, she'd found Mishra the skeptic and Mishra the 
babbling pedant! She shot him a disbelieving look. "Don't 
ask me. Last night, you were the one who said that the 
Weakstone was singing to you."
    Ratepe winced and walked past the bacon without taking 
any.
    "Two eyes, two stones," Xantcha continued. "I thought 
you'd gotten lucky."
    "I heard something, not with my ears, but inside my 
head." He stopped and faced her, confusion painfully 
evident on his face. "I called it singing, 'cause that's 
the best word I had. And it came from his left eye." He sat 
down on the ash bucket, staring at his feet. "Do you want 
to know how I knew which eye was which?"
    Measured by his expression, she wouldn't like the 
answer but, "Go ahead, enlighten me."
    "It told me. It told me what it was and that it had 
been waiting for someone who could hear it. When Urza said 
Harbin wasn't his son, it was, it was .. ," Ratepe made a 
helpless gesture that ended with his fingertips pressed 
against his temples. "Not pain, but like the feeling that 
comes after pain." He stopped again and closed his eyes 
before continuing. "Xantcha, I heard Mishra. Well, not 
quite heard him. It was just there, in my mind, from the 
stone. I knew what Mishra thought, what he would have said. 
Not his words, exactly. My words." His eyes opened. He 
stared at Xantcha with only a shadow of his usual 
cockiness. "I know who I am, Xantcha.
    I'm Ratepe, son of Mideah, or, just Rat now, 'cause I 
lost everything when I became a slave. I was born almost 
eighteen years ago in the city of Pincar, on the sixth day 
after the Festival of Fruits in the sixth year of Tabarna's 
reign. I'm me. But, Xantcha, pretending to be Mishra, the 
way you asked me to-" He broke the stare. "It's not 
pretend. I could get lost. I could wind up thinking I am 
Mishra before this is over."
    Xantcha bit her lip and sighed. Ratepe wasn't looking, 
didn't seem to have heard. "Right now, while you're sitting 
there, can you hear the Weakstone singing Mishra's thoughts 
in your mind?"
    He shook his head. "Only when I'm looking at Urza's 
eyes, or when he's looking at me."
    She began another sigh, of relief this time, but she 
began too soon.
    "I'm worried, Xantcha. It's so real, so easy to imagine 
him, and that's after just one night. By next year when I'm 
supposed to go back to Efuan Pincar ... ? You should've 
warned me."
    Trust Rat-or Ratepe-or Mishra-or whatever he wanted to 
call himself to go for the guilt. "I didn't know about the 
singing. I knew about Urza's eyes, where they came from 
anyway, and I did warn you about that. But singing and 
Mishra? Beyond The Antiquity Wars, I don't know anything 
but what Urza's told me, and I guess there's a lot he 
didn't."
    The rest of Xantcha's anger went with that admission. 
She leaned against a porch post, grateful that no one was 
looking at her. All those times Urza had glowered at her, 
eyes ablaze-had the voice of Mishra's Weakstone tried to 
make itself heard in her mind? Why, really, had she gone in 
search of a false Mishra? What had drawn her to Ratepe? 
She'd known he was the one to fulfill her plans before 
she'd gotten a good look at him.
    "Can I trust myself?"
    Xantcha had no assurances, not for herself or for him. 
"I don't know."
    Ratepe folded his arms tightly across his ribs and 
shrank within himself. Xantcha had spent all her life with 
Phyrexians or Urza. She wasn't accustomed to expressive 
faces and wasn't prepared for the gust of empathy that blew 
from Ratepe to her. She tried to shake it off with a change 
of subject and a touch of humor.
    "What were the three of you talking about all night?"
    Ratepe wasn't interested. "A year from now, will there 
be anything left of me? Will I be myself?"
    "I'm still me," Xantcha answered.
    "Right. We talked, some, about you."
    She should have expected that, but hadn't. "I haven't 
lied to you, Ratepe, not about the important things. The 
Phyrexians are real, and Urza's the only one with the power 
to defeat them."
    "But Urza's wits are addled, aren't they? And you 
thought you'd cure him if you scrounged up someone who'd 
remind him of his brother. You thought you could make him 
stop living in the past."
    "I told you that before we left Medran."
    "Are you as old as he is?"
    Xantcha found the question surprisingly difficult to 
answer. "Younger, a bit... I think. You're not the only one 
who doesn't know who or what to trust inside. He told you I 
was Phyrexian?"
    "Repeatedly. But, since he thinks I'm Mishra, he's not 
infallible."
    The bacon was burning. Xantcha scraped the charred 
rashers onto the platter and made of show of eating one, 
swallowing time while she decided how to answer.
    "You can believe him." She took a deep breath and 
recited-in Phyrexian squeals, squeaks, and chattering, as 
best she could remember them-the first lesson she'd learned 
from the vat-priests. "Newts you are, and newts you shall 
remain. Obey and learn. Pay attention. Make no mistakes."
    Ratepe gaped. "That day, in the sphere, when you cut 
yourself-If I'd taken the knife from you-"
    "I'd bleed no matter where you cut me. It would have 
hurt. You could have killed me, you were inside the sphere. 
I'm not Urza. I don't think Urza can be killed. I don't 
think he's alive, not the way you and I are."
    "You and I, Xantcha? No one I know lives for three 
thousand years."
    "Closer to thirty-four hundred, I think. Urza believes 
I was born on another plane and that the Phyrexians stole 
me while I was still a child then compleated me the way 
they compleated Mishra.
    But that can't be true. I don't know what happened to 
Mishra, but with newts, we've got to be compleated while 
we're still new. Urza's never accepted that I was dragged 
out of a vat in the Fane of Flesh."
    "So, in addition to everything else, Phyrexians are 
immortal?"
    "To survive the compleation, newts have to be very 
resilient, immortally resilient. But Phyrexians can die, 
especially newts, just not of age or anything else that 
born-folk might call natural."
    "And after thirty-four hundred years, Urza still 
doesn't believe you?"
    "Urza's mad, Ratepe. What he knows and what he believes 
aren't always the same. Most of the time it doesn't make 
any difference, as long as he acts to defeat Phyrexia and 
stops trying to recreate the past on a tabletop."
    Ratepe nodded. "He showed me what he was working on."
    "Again?" Xantcha couldn't muster surprise or 
indignation, only weariness.
    "I guess, if you say so. Funny thing, with the 
Weakstone, I get a sense of everything that happened to 
Mishra." He fell silent until Xantcha looked at him. 
"You're half-right about what happened. Urza's half-right, 
too. Phyrexians wanted the Weakstone. When Mishra wouldn't 
surrender it, one of them tried to kill him. The Weakstone 
kept him alive then and even when they took him apart 
later, but it couldn't keep him sane." Ratepe strangled a 
laugh. "Maybe burning his own mind was the last sane thing 
Mishra did. After that, there're only images, like 
paintings on a wall, and waiting, endless waiting, for Urza 
to listen."
    "And now Mishra, or the Weakstone, or both of them 
together have you to speak for them."
    "So far, I listen, but I speak for myself."
    "What does that mean?"
    Ratepe began to pace. He made a fist with his right 
hand and pounded it against his left palm. "It means I'd do 
anything to have my life back. I wish I'd never seen you. I 
wish I was still a slave in Medran. Tucktah and Garve only 
had my body. My thoughts were safe. I didn't know the 
meaning of powerless until I looked into Urza's eyes. I'm 
as dead as he is, as Mishra, as you."
    The self-proclaimed dead man stopped beside the bacon 
platter and ate a rasher.
    "I'm not dead."
    "No, you're Phyrexian," Ratepe retorted between 
swallows. "You weren't born, you were immortal when you 
were decanted. How could you ever be dead?"
    Xantcha ignored the question. "A year, Ratepe, or less. 
As soon as Urza turns away from the past, I'll take you 
back to Efuan Pincar. You have my word for that."
    Silence, then: "Urza doesn't trust you."
    That stung, even if Ratepe was only repeating something 
that Xantcha had heard countless times before. "I would 
never betray him... or you."
    "But you're Phyrexian. If I believe you, you've never 
been anything but Phyrexian. They're your kin. My father 
once told me not to trust a man who led a fight against his 
kin. Betrayal is a nasty habit that once acquired is never 
cast aside."
    "Your father is dead." When it came to cruelty, Xantcha 
had been taught by masters.
    Ratepe stiffened. Leaving the last rashers of bacon on 
the platter, he walked a straight path away from the 
cottage. Xantcha let him go. She banked the fire, ate the 
last of the soggy bacon, and retreated to her room. Her 
treasured copies of The Antiquity Wars offered no solace, 
not against the turmoil she'd invited into her life when 
she'd bought herself a slave. And though there was no 
chance that she'd fall asleep, Xantcha threw herself down 
on her mattress and pillows.
    She was still there, weary, lost in time, and wallowing 
in an endless array of painful memories, when she sensed a 
darkening and heard a gentle tapping on her open door. "Are 
you awake?"
    If Xantcha hadn't been awake, she wouldn't have heard 
Ratepe's question. If she'd had her wits, she could have 
answered him with unmoving silence and he might have gone 
away. But Xantcha couldn't remember the last time anyone 
had knocked on her door. Sheer surprise lifted her onto her 
elbows, revealing her secret before she had a chance to 
keep it.
    Ratepe crossed her threshold and settled himself at her 
table, on her stool. There was only one in the room. 
Xantcha sat up on the mattress, not entirely pleased with 
the situation. Ratepe stiffened. He seemed to reconsider 
his visit, but spoke softly instead.
    "I'm sorry. I'm angry and I'm scared and just plain 
stupid. You're the closest I've got to a friend right now. 
I shouldn't've said what I said. I'm sorry." He held out 
his hand.
    Xantcha knew the signal. It was oddly consistent across 
the planes where men and women abounded. Smile if you're 
happy, frown when you're not. Make a fist when you're 
angry, but offer your open hand for trust. It was as if men 
and women were born knowing the same gestures.
    She kept her hands wrapped around her pillow. "Betrayed 
by the truth?"
    He winced and lowered his hand. "Not the truth. Just 
words I knew would hurt. You did it, too. Call it square?"
    "Why not?"
    Xantcha offered her hand which Ratepe seized and shook 
vigorously, then released as if he was glad to have the 
ritual behind him. A suspicion he confirmed with his next 
remark.
    "Urza's gone. I knocked on his door. I thought I'd talk 
to him and ask his advice. I know, that was stupid, too. 
But, the door opened... and he's not in there."
    Xantcha spun herself off the bed and toward the door. 
"He's gone "walking."
    "I didn't see him leave, Xantcha, and I would've. I 
didn't go far, not out of sight. He's vanished."
    "Planeswalking," she explained, leading the way to the 
porch and the door to Urza's larger quarters. "Dominaria's 
a plane, Moag, Vatraquaz, Equilor, Serra's realm, even 
Phyrexia, they're all planes, all worlds, and Urza can 
'walk among them. Don't ask how. I don't know. I just close 
my eyes and die a little every time. The sphere that I 
brought you here in started off as armor, so I could 
survive when he pulled me after him."
    "But? You're Phyrexian. The Phyrexians . . . how do 
they get here?"
    "Ambulators . . . artifacts."
    Xantcha put her weight against the door and shoved it 
open. Not a moment's doubt that Urza was gone, but one of 
surprise when she saw that the table was clear.
    "You said you saw him working at the table?" Ratepe 
barreled into her, keeping his balance only by grabbing her 
shoulders. He let go quickly, as he had when their hands 
had touched. "It was a battlefield, "The Dawn of Fire." Can 
you tell where he's gone?"
    Xantcha shrugged and hurried to the table. No dust, no 
silver droplets, no gnats stuck in the wood grain or 
stranded on the floor. She tried to remember another time 
when Urza had cleaned up after himself so thoroughly. She 
couldn't. "Phyrexia?" Ratepe asked, at her side again. "He 
wasn't ready for a battle, and there'll be a battle, if he 
ever goes back to Phyrexia. No, I think he's still here, 
somewhere on Dominaria."
    "But you said 'among worlds.' "
    "The fastest way from here and there on Dominaria is to 
go between-worlds. Did he mention Baszerat or Morvern?"
    Ratepe made a sour face. "No. Why would anyone mention 
Baszerat and Morvern?"
    "Because the Phyrexians are there, on both sides of a 
war. I told him to go and see for himself. With all the 
excitement last night, I forgot to ask him what he 
learned."
    "That the Baszerati are swine and the Morvernish are 
sheep?" After so many worlds and so many years of 
wandering, Xantcha tended to see similarities. Ratepe had a 
one-worlder's perspective, which she tried to change. "They 
are equally besieged, equally vulnerable. The Phyrexians 
are the enemy; nothing else matters. It was smelling them 
in Baszerat and Morvern that convinced me the time was 
right to go looking for you. Urza's got to hold the line in 
Baszerat and Morvern or it will be too late."
    Ratepe sulked. "Why not hold the line in Efuan Pincar? 
The Phyrexians are there, too, aren't they?"
    "I haven't talked to him about Efuan Pincar."
    "I did." He saw her gasp and added, "You didn't say I 
shouldn't."
    When Xantcha had hatched her scheme to end Urza's 
madness by bringing him face-to-face with his brother, 
she'd imagined that she'd be setting the pace, planning the 
strategies until Urza's wits were sharp again. Her plans 
had been going awry almost from the beginning, certainly 
since the burning village. While she came to terms with her 
error, Ratepe attacked the silence.
    "He didn't seem to know our history, so I tried to tell 
him everything from the Landings on. He seemed interested. 
He asked questions and I answered them. He seemed surprised 
that I could, because he said my mind was empty. But he 
paid the closest attention toward the end when I told him 
about the Shratta and the Red-Stripes.àEspecially theà
Shratta and Avohir and our holy book. I told him our family 
wasn't religious, that if he really wanted to know, he 
should visit the temples of Pincar and listen to the 
priests. There areàstill wise priests in Pincar, I think. 
TheàShratta can't have gotten them all."
    "Enough, Ratepe," Xantcha said with a sigh and a finger 
laid on Ratepe's upper lip. He flinched again. They both 
took a step back. The increased distance made conversation 
a little easier; eye contact, too, if he'd been willing to 
look at her. "It's not your fault."
    "I shouldn't have told him about the temples?"
    Xantcha raised her eyebrows.
    Ratepe corrected himself. "I shouldn't have told him 
about the Phyrexians. I should have asked you first?"
    "And I would have told you to wait, even though there's 
nothing I want more than to get Urza moving. You did what 
you thought was right, and it was right. It's not what I 
would have done. I've got to get used to that. I warn you, 
it won't be easy."
    "He'll come back, won't he? Urza won't just roar 
through Efuan Pincar, killing every Red-Stripe Phyrexian he 
can find."
    With a last look at the table, Xantcha headed out. 
"There's no second guessing Urza the Artificer, Ratepe-but 
if he did, it wouldn't be a bad thing, would it?"
    "Killing all the Red-Stripes would leave the Shratta 
without any enemies."
    Xantcha paused beside the door. "You're assuming that 
there aren't any Phyrexians among the Shratta. Remember 
what I told you about the Baszerati and the Morvernish-the 
sheep and the swine? I wouldn't count on it."
    She left Ratepe standing in the empty room and had 
gotten as far as the wellhead, beyond the hearth, before he 
came chasing after her.
    "What do we do now?" Ratepe's cheeks were red above the 
dark stubble of a two-day beard. "Follow him?"
    "We wait." Xantcha unknotted the winch and let the 
bucket drop.
    "Something could go wrong."
    "All the more reason to wait." She began cranking. 
"We'd only make it worse."
    "Una hadn't ever heard of Efuan Pincar. He didn't know 
where it was. He doesn't know our language."
    Xantcha let go of the winch. "What language do you 
think you two have been speaking since you got here?" 
Ratepe's mouth fell open, but no sound came out, so she 
went on. "I don't know why he says our minds are empty. 
He's willing to plunder them when it suits him. Urza 
doesn't know everything you know. You can keep a secret by 
just not thinking about it, or by imagining a wall around 
it, but in the beginning-and maybe all the time-best think 
that Urza knows what you know."
    Ratepe stood motionless except for his breathing, which 
was shallow with shock. His flush had faded to waxy pale. 
Xantcha cranked the bucket up and offered him sweet water 
from the ladle. Most of it went down his chin, but he found 
his voice.
    "He knows what I was thinking? The Weakstone and 
Mishra? How I thought I was outwitting Urza the Artificer? 
Avohir's mercy ..."
    Xantcha refilled the ladle and drank. "Maybe. Urza's 
mad, Ratepe, He hears what he wants to hear, whether it's 
your voice or your thoughts, and he might not hear you at 
all-but he could. That's what you've got to remember. I 
should've told you sooner." "Do you know what I'm 
thinking?" "Only when your mouth is open."
    He closed it immediately, and Xantcha walked away, 
chuckling. She'd gone about ten steps when Ratepe raced 
past and stopped, facing her.
    "All right. I've had enough . . . You're Phyrexian. You 
weren't born, you crawled out of a pit. You're more than 
three thousand years old, even though you look about 
twelve. You dress like a man-a boy. You talk like a man, 
but Efuand's a tricky language. We talk about things as if 
they were men or women-a dog is a man, but a cat is a lady. 
Among ourselves, though, when you say 'I did this,' or 'I 
did that,' the form's the same, whether I'm a man or woman. 
Usually, the difference is obvious." He swallowed hard, and 
Xantcha knew what he was thinking before he opened his 
mouth again. "Last night, Urza, when he'd talk about you, 
he'd say she and her. What are you, Xantcha, a man or a 
woman?"
    "Is it important?"
    "Yes, it's important."
    "Neither."
    She walked past him and didn't break his arm when he 
spun her back to face him.
    "That's not an answer!"
    "It's not the answer you want." She wrenched free.
    "But, Urza . . . ? Why?"
    "Phyrexian's not a tricky language. There are no 
families, no need for men or women, no words for them, 
either-except in dreams. I had no need for those words 
until I met a demon. He invaded my mind. After that and 
because of it, I've thought of myself as she."
    "Urza?" Ratepe's voice had harshened. He was indignant, 
angry.
    Xantcha laughed. "No, not Urza. Long before Urza."
    "So, you and Urza . . . ?"
    "Urza? You did read The Antiquity Wars, didn't you? 
Urza didn't even notice Kayla Bin-Kroog!"
    She left Ratepe gaping and closed the door behind her.
 
                        CHAPTER 12
 
    Urza was an honorable man, and an honest one. Even when 
he'd been an ordinary man, if the word ordinary had ever 
applied to Urza the Artificer, Urza had had no great use 
for romance or affection, but he'd tolerated friendship, 
one friend at a time.
    After Xantcha had pushed him out of Phyrexia, he'd 
accepted her as a friend.
    In the three thousand years since, Xantcha had never 
asked for more nor settled for less.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    They'd stumbled through three worlds before the day 
during which Urza had ridden his dragon into Phyrexia, 
ended. Xantcha was seedier than Urza by then, which meant 
they were leaning against each other when Xantcha released 
her armor to the cool, night mist. There were unfamiliar 
stars peeking through the mist and a trio of blue-white 
moons.
    "Far enough," she whispered. Her voice had been wrecked 
by the bad air of four different worlds. "I've got to 
rest."
    "It's not safe! I hear him, Yawg-"
    Xantcha cringed whenever Urza started to say that word. 
She seized the crumbling substance of his ornately armored 
tunic. "You're calling the Ineffable! Never say that, never 
do that. Every time you say that name, the Ineffable can 
hear you. Of all the things I was taught in the Fane of 
Flesh, that one I believe with all my strength. We'll never 
be safe until you burn that name from your memory."
    Sparks danced across Una's eyes, which had been a 
featureless black since he'd dragged them away from 
Phyrexia. Xantcha didn't know what he saw, except it had 
him spooked, and anything that unnerved Urza was more than 
enough for her.
    Urza took her suggestion to heart. Heat radiated from 
his face. Waste not, want not, if he could literally burn 
something from his memory, he could probably survive it, 
too. Still, she put more distance between them, leading him 
by the wrist to a rock where he could sit.
    "Water, Xantcha. Could you bring me water?"
    He was blind, at least to real things. His vision, he'd 
said, was all spots and bubbles, as if he'd stared too long 
at the sun. There'd been no sun above the Fourth Sphere, 
but the dragon had been the target of all the weapons, 
sorcerous and elemental, that the demons could aim.
    "You'll stay right here?" she asked.
    "I'll try."
    Xantcha didn't ask what he meant. She'd set her feet on 
enough worlds to have a sharp sense of where she could 
survive and where she couldn't. Phyrexia and the three 
worlds after Phyrexia were inhospitable, but this three-
moon world was viable. She had her cyst, her heart, and, 
tucked inside her tunic, an ambulator. If Urza vanished 
before she returned, it wouldn't be the end of her.
    Heavy rains had fallen recently. Xantcha saw water at 
the base of the hill where they emerged from between-
worlds. Carrying it was another matter. She quenched her 
thirst from her own cupped hands, but for Urza she stripped 
off her tunic, sopped it in the water, and carried it, 
dripping, up the hill.
    Urza's attempt to remain seated atop the rock had been 
successful. Silhouetted against the softly lit night sky, 
his shoulders were slumped forward, and his chin had 
disappeared in the shadows of his armored tunic. His hands 
lay inert in his lap.
    "Urza?"
    His chin rose.
    "I've brought you water, without grace or dignity."
    "As long as it is wet."
    She guided his hand to the sopping cloth. "Quite wet."
    Urza sucked moisture from the cloth, then wiped his 
face. When he'd finished, he let her tunic fall. Xantcha 
sat at his feet.
    "Is there anything more I can do for you? Will you eat? 
Food might help. I smell berries. It's summer here."
    He shook his head. "Just sit beside me. Sleep, if you 
can, child. Morning will come, a summer morning."
    Xantcha fought into her tunic. The night was cool, not 
cold. The garment was uncomfortable, nothing worse. 
Discomfort was nothing unfamiliar. She got comfortable 
against the rock. Urza shifted his hand to the top of her 
head.
    "I told you to stay behind."
    "I did, for a little while."
    "You could have been hurt. I might have left you in 
Phyrexia forever."
    Urza was Urza, at the very center of his world and 
every other. On a night like this, after the day they'd 
survived, his vainglory was reassuring. Xantcha relaxed.
    "It went otherwise, Urza. I was neither hurt nor left 
behind."
    "I'd still be there but for you."
    "You'd be dead, Urza, if you can die, or in the Seventh 
Sphere, if you can't, wishing that you could."
    "The Seventh Sphere is the place where-" He hesitated. 
"Where the Ineffable punishes demons?"
    "Yes."
    "Then I should thank you."
    "Yes," Xantcha repeated. "And you should have listened 
to me when I told you what waited in Phyrexia."
    "I will build another dragon, bigger and stronger. I 
know where
    Phyrexia is now, tucked across a fathomless chasm. I 
would never have seen it 'walking. I wouldn't see it now, 
but I know and I can go back. They will die, Xantcha. I 
will reap them like a field of overripe grain. The day of 
Mishra's vengeance is closer today than yesterday."
    Xantcha swallowed an ordinary yawn. "You were 
surrounded, Urza. The fourth leg went right after I climbed 
it. You'd destroyed hundreds of Phyrexians, and yet there 
were as many around you at the end as there had been at the 
beginning."
    "I will change my design."
    "A thousand legs wouldn't be enough. You can't destroy 
every Phyrexian by fighting. You'll need allies and an army 
three times the size of Phyrexia. Tactics. Strategy." 
Xantcha thought of the heart vault. "Or, the perfect target 
for a stealthy attack."
    "And since when did you become my war consul, child?"
    Urza could be disdainful. Strategy and tactics indeed. 
She'd need be careful when she mentioned the heart vault. 
Tonight, while Urza was blind and she was exhausted, wasn't 
the right time to reveal her discoveries. Another yawn 
escaped, entirely normal. Without the mnemonic, the cyst 
was just a lump in her stomach.
    "Sleep, child. I am grateful. I underestimated my 
enemy. I'll never do that again."
    Xantcha was too tired to celebrate what little victory 
she'd achieved. She fell asleep thinking she'd be alone 
when she awoke.
    She was, but Urza hadn't gone far. With nothing more 
than grass, twigs and small stones, Xantcha's companion had 
recreated the Fourth Sphere battleground in an area no more 
than two-paces square. His dragon, made from twigs and 
woven grass, towered over the other replicas in precisely 
the proportions she remembered. She expected it to move.
    "I'm awed," she admitted before her shadow fell across 
Urza's small wonders. "You must be feeling better?"
    "As good as a fool can feel."
    It was a comment that begged questions, but Xantcha had 
learned to tread softly through confusion. "You can see 
again?"
    "Yes, yes." He looked up: black pupils, hazel irises, 
white sclera. "You had the right of it, Xantcha. Burn that 
name out of my mind.
    As soon as I did, I began to feel like myself again, 
ignorant and foolish. No one was hurt. No planes were 
damaged."
    "A few spheres. The priests will be a long time 
repairing the damage. And you destroyed a score of their 
dragons and wyverns. Better than I expected, honestly."
    "But not good enough. If I'd come down here-" Urza 
touched the ground behind the stone-shaped furnaces then 
quickly rearranged the delicate figures-"I'd have had a 
wall of fire at my back, and they couldn't have encircled 
me."
    Xantcha studied the new array. "How would that be 
better? With the furnaces behind you, you'd have been held 
in one place almost from the start." Urza gave her a look 
that sparkled. She changed the subject. "Are we staying 
here while you build another dragon?"
    "No. The multiverse is real, Xantcha. At least every 
plane I'd ever found before was real, until yesterday when 
I found Phyrexia. Going there and leaving, those were 
'walking strides like I've never taken before. It was as if 
I'd leapt a vast chasm in a single bound. The chasm, I 
realize now, is everywhere, and Phyrexia is its far side. 
No matter where we are, we're only one leap away from our 
enemy and it from us. Even so, I'll feel better when I've 
put a few knots in my trail."
    She had no argument with that plan. "Then what? Another 
dragon? An army? Allies? I found something yesterday, Urza, 
something I thought was probably lies. I found my heart."
    Xantcha slid her hand into her boot. The amber 
continued to glow. She offered it to Urza.
    "That is-well, it's not your heart, Xantcha." He didn't 
take it. "Your heart beats behind your ribs, child. The 
Phyrexians lied to you. They took your past and your 
future, but they didn't take your heart." Urza guided her 
empty hand to her breastbone. "There, can you feel it?"
    She nodded. All flesh had a blood-heart in its breast. 
Newts in the Fane of Flesh had hearts until they were 
compleated. "This is different," she insisted and described 
the vault where countless hearts shimmered. "We are 
connected to our hearts. We are taught that the Ineffable 
keeps watch over our hearts and records our errors on their 
surface. Too many errors and-" She drew a line across her 
throat.
    Urza took the amber and held it to the sun. Xantcha 
couldn't see his face or his eyes but a strangeness not 
unlike the between-worlds tightened around her. She 
couldn't breathe, couldn't even muster the strength or will 
to gasp until Urza lowered his hand. His face, when he 
turned toward her again, was not pleased.
    "Of all abominations, this is the greatest." Urza held 
the amber above her still-outstretched hand but did not 
release it. "I would not call it a heart, yet it falls 
short of a powerstone. I can imagine no purpose for it, 
except the one you describe. And you knew where the vault 
was?"
    Xantcha sensed Urza had asked a critical question and 
that her life might depend on her answer. She would have 
lied, if she'd been certain a lie would satisfy him. "I 
knew it was somewhere in the Fane of Flesh."
    "You didn't tell me?"
    "I didn't want to die with all the rest of Phyrexia. I 
wasn't certain. I thought you'd laugh and call me a child 
again, and I would have been too ashamed to follow you."
    Not quite an answer, but the truth and, apparently, 
satisfactory. Urza dropped the amber into her hand. Without 
conscious thought, Xantcha clutched it against her blood-
heart.
    "I wouldn't have-" Urza began, then stopped abruptly 
and looked down at his grass-and-twig dragon. "No, very 
possibly your concerns were justified. I do not imagine 
abominations and have discouraged you, thinking you 
imagined them. I allowed myself to forget that your mind is 
empty. Phyrexians have no imagination." He crushed the 
dragon beneath his boot. "Another mistake. Another error. 
Forgive me, Mishra, I cannot see when I need most to see 
and opportunity slips away forever. If only I could relive 
yesterday instead of tomorrow."
    "You can go back as soon as you've restored your 
strength. If I could find the vault. . ."
    Urza shuddered. "They know me now. Your Ineffable knows 
me, I cannot return to Phyrexia, not without absolute 
certainty of success and overwhelming strength. For the 
sake of vengeance, I must be cautious. I cannot make any 
more mistakes. I would be found out before I set foot on 
your First Sphere."
    Xantcha kept her mouth shut. It wasn't her First 
Sphere. Urza had powers that Phyrexia coveted, but he was 
oddly reluctant to use them. He had to overwhelm whatever 
lay before him, and when he made one of his mistakes, that 
mistake became a fortress.
    "I could go. I have an ambulator." She lifted the hem 
of her tunic, revealing the small black disk tucked beneath 
her belt. "If you made a smaller dragon, I could turn it 
loose in the vault."
    Urza smiled. "Your courage is laudable, child, but you 
couldn't hope to succeed. We will talk no more about it." 
He reached for the portal. Xantcha retreated, folding her 
arms defensively over her belly. "Come child, you have no 
need for such an artifact. It is beyond your understanding. 
Let me have it."
    "I'm not a child," she warned, the least incendiary 
comment seething on the back of her tongue.
    "You see, simply having a Phyrexian artifact so close 
to you taints you, as that name, yesterday, threatened to 
taint me. You haven't the strength to resist its 
corruption. You've become willful. Between that and your 
heart . . . You're overwhelmed, Xantcha. I should take them 
both from you, for your own safety, but I will leave you 
your heart, if you give me the ambulator."
    "It's mine!" Xantcha protested. "I rolled it up."
    She'd seen born-children in her travels and recognized 
her behavior. Urza didn't have to say another word. Xantcha 
handed the ambulator over.
    "Thank you, Xantcha. I will study it closely."
    Urza held the ambulator between his fingertips where it 
vanished. Perhaps he would study it. Perhaps he would find 
a way to add its properties to her cyst. Whichever or 
whatever, Xantcha didn't think she'd see it again, but she 
kept her heart. Urza could have everything else, not that.
    He 'walked through two more worlds that day and two 
more the next and the next after that, making knots in 
their trail. After two score worlds in half as many days, 
Xantcha swore the next would be her last, that she'd let go 
of his hands and remain behind. Any world would be better 
than another between-worlds passage. But the next world was 
yellow gas, wind, and lightning that seemed particularly 
attracted to her armor, and the world after that had no 
air. Urza made an underground chamber where Xantcha could 
breathe without her armor and catch up on her sleep.
    They came to a swamp with cone-shaped insects as long 
as her forearm and an abundance of frogs, not Xantcha's 
favorite sort of place. It reminded her of Phyrexia's First 
Sphere, but she could breathe and eat and the water, though 
brackish, didn't make her sick.
    "This is far enough for me," she announced when Urza 
held out his hand. "I don't need to visit every world."
    "Only a few more," Urza protested.
    He'd begun to pace. Since Phyrexia, his restlessness 
had steadily worsened until he could scarcely stand still. 
He didn't even try to sleep.
    "I'm tired," she told him.
    "You slept last night."
    "Last night! When was last night? Where was last night? 
The world with the yellow trees or the one with two suns? I 
want to stay put long enough see the seasons change."
    "Farmer," Urza chided her, a distinct improvement over 
'child' and the truth as well. She'd spent too much time 
scratching in Phyrexia's sterile soil not to appreciate 
worlds where plants grew naturally.
    "I want a home."
    "So do I." An admission she hadn't expected. "It's 
here, Xantcha. Dominaria . . . home. I can feel it each 
time we 'walk, but at every step, a darkness blocks me. The 
darkness was here the last time, before I found you. It was 
like nothing I'd encountered before. I was sure it would 
pass, but it hasn't. It's still here, and stronger than 
before."
    "Like a knife?" she asked, remembering the rumors of 
newts trapped on the nether side of broken portals.
    "A knife? No, it is as if multiverse itself had 
shattered, as if Dominaria and all the planes that are 
bound to it have been broken apart. I have 'walked all 
around, approaching it from every vantage, yet each time it 
is the same. There is a darkness that is also cold and 
repels me. I've been making a map in my mind, a shape 
beyond words. When it's done, I will know that Dominaria is 
completely sealed from me and Phyrexia.
    "It is my fault, you know. It's not merely vengeance 
that I require from Phyrexia. I require atonement The 
Phyrexians corrupted and destroyed my brother; that's 
vengeance. But we, my brother and I, let them back into 
Dominaria when we destroyed the Thran safeguards. The land 
itself has not forgiven me, won't forgive me until I have 
atoned for our error by destroying Phyrexia. Dominaria 
locks me out, as it locks out the Phyrexians. I cannot go 
home until I have done what not even the Thran could do: 
destroy Phyrexia!
    "I want to go home, Xantcha. You, who cannot remember 
where you were born, cannot know true homesickness as I 
know it. I had not thought it would be so difficult. The 
land does not forgive. It has sealed itself against me. But 
it has sealed itself against Phyrexia, too, and though my 
heart aches, I am content with my exile, knowing that my 
home is safe."
    Xantcha rubbed her temples. There was truth, usually, 
tangled through Urza's self-centered delusions. "Searcher-
priests don't "walk between-worlds," she said cautiously, 
when she thought she had the wheat separated from the 
chaff. When conversation touched Mishra, Dominaria or the 
mysterious Thran, Urza's moods became less predictable than 
they usually were. "They use ambulators, but I don't know 
how they set the stones to find new worlds. Maybe you can't 
be quite certain that Dominaria is safe?"
    "I'm certain," he insisted.
    Her thoughts raced along a bright tangent. "You figured 
out how to set the stones on my ambulator?"
    "Yes. I set it for Dominaria, and it was destroyed."
    Xantcha's mind went dark. There was much she could have 
said and no reason to say any of it. She turned away with a 
sigh.
    "When I know, beyond doubt, that Dominaria is 
inaccessible, then I will look for a hospitable plane. I 
mean to take your advice, Xantcha. I will build an army 
three times the size of Phyrexia, and ambulators large 
enough to transport them by the thousand! I examined your 
ambulator quite thoroughly before it was destroyed. I can 
make you another once I find the right materials, and can 
make it better."
    Urza expected her to rejoice, so she tried. She took 
his arm and followed to a "few" more worlds, thirty-three, 
before he was satisfied that Dominaria was inaccessible 
behind what he called a shard of the multiverse. Urza 
insisted that, compared to the mul-tiverse, a thousand 
worlds could be properly termed a "few" worlds. The 
multiverse meant little to her. Urza's efforts to explain 
the planes and nexi that comprised it meant less. But the 
fact that Urza did try to explain it meant a lot.
    "I need a friend," he explained one lonely night on a 
world where the air was old and nothing remained alive. "I 
need to talk with someone who has seen what I have seen, 
some of it, enough to listen without going numb from 
despair. And, after I have talked, I need to hear a voice 
that is not my own."
    "But you never listen to me!"
    "I always listen, Xantcha. You are rarely correct. I 
cannot replace what the Phyrexians took away from you. Your 
mind is mostly empty, and what isn't empty is filled with 
Phyrexian rubbish. You recite their lies because you cannot 
know better. Your advice, child, is untrustworthy, but you, 
yourself, are my friend."
    Urza hadn't called her child since they "walked away 
from Dominaria, and Xantcha didn't like to think that after 
so much time together, he continued to distrust her, but an 
offer of friendship, true friendship, was a gift not to be 
overlooked.
    "I will never betray you," Xantcha said softly, taking 
his hand between hers.
    It was like stone at first, flexible stone. Then it 
softened, warmed, and became flesh.
    "I want nothing more than to be your friend, Urza."
    He smiled, a rare and mortal gesture. "I will take you 
wherever you want, but I would rather you wanted to remain 
with me until we find a plane that satisfies both of us."
    Late that night, when the fire was cold and Urza had 
gone wandering, as he usually did while she slept, Xantcha 
sharpened her knife and made an incision in her left flank, 
the side opposite the cyst. She tucked her amber heart into 
the gap, sealed it with a paste of ashes, then bound it 
tightly with cloth torn from her spare clothes.
    Urza knew immediately. She'd been a fool to think he 
wouldn't.
    "I swallowed it my own way," she told him, in no mood 
for a lengthy argument. "It's part of me now, where it 
belongs. I'll never lose it, no matter where you take me."
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Xantcha wanted a world where she could pretend she'd 
been born. Never mind that by their best guess, she was 
living near the end of her sixth century and no more than 
seven decades younger than Urza himself. Urza wanted a 
plane where he could recruit an army. Their wants, she 
thought, should not have been incompatible, and perhaps 
they wouldn't have been, if Urza had been able to sleep. To 
give him his due, Xantcha granted that Urza tried to sleep. 
He knew he needed to dream, but whenever he attempted that 
treacherous descent from wakefulness, he found nightmares 
instead, screaming nightmares that spread like the stench 
of rotting fish on a summer's day. Until anyone within a 
half-day's journey could see the flames of Phyrexia and the 
metal and flesh apparition that Urza called Mishra.
    Strangers did not welcome them for long. Recruiting an 
army was impossible. When she was lucky, Xantcha nursed a 
single harvest from the ground before they went 'walking 
again. When they found a truly hospitable world with 
abundant, rich soil, a broad swath of temperate climates 
and a wealth of vigorous cultures, Xantcha suggested that 
Urza build himself a tower on the loneliest island in the 
largest sea. He could 'walk to such a tower without 
difficulty and sleep, she'd hoped, without disturbing 
anyone.
    Urza called the world Moag, and it became the home 
Xantcha had dreamed about. He built a sheer-walled tower 
with neither windows nor doors and filled it with 
artifacts. Within a decade, its rocky shores had become a 
place of prophecy and learning where
    Urza warned pilgrims of Phyrexian evil and laid the 
foundations for the army he hoped eventually to raise.
    Xantcha built a cottage with a garden, and in the 
seasons when it didn't need tending, she yawned and went 
exploring. Urza had made her another summoning crystal, 
which she wore in friendship but never expected to use. 
They met at his island whenever the moon was full, nowhere 
else, no other time. They'd become friends who could talk 
about anything because they knew which questions to avoid.
    For thirty years, life-Xantcha's apparently immortal 
life- could not have been better. Until the bright autumn 
day on Moag's most intriguing southern continent when 
Xantcha caught the unexpected, unforgettable scent of 
glistening oil. She followed it to the source: the newly 
refurbished temple of a fire god with a taste for gold and 
blood sacrifice.
    A born-flesh novice sat beside a burning alms box. For 
the hearths of the poor, he said, and though it looked like 
extortion, Xantcha threw copper into the flames. She yawned 
out her armor before entering the sanctuary. Trouble found 
her, one Phyrexian to another, before she reached the fire-
bound altar.
    Wrapped in concealing robes, it showed only its face 
which had the jowls and grizzled beard of a mature man and 
the reek of the compleated. In its gloved hand it carried a 
gnarled wooden staff that immediately roused Xantcha's 
suspicion. She had a small sword on her hip. A mace would 
have been more useful, but out of keeping with the rest of 
her dandy's disguise.
    "Where have you been?" it asked in a Phyrexian whisper 
that could have been mistaken for insects buzzing.
    "Waiting," Xantcha replied with a newt's soft 
inflection. Waiting to see what would happen next.
    It came faster than she'd expected. There was a priest 
of some new type inside those robes, and its staff was as 
false as its face. A web of golden power struck her armor. 
The priest wasn't expecting surprises, not from a newt. 
Xantcha kicked it once in the mid-section and again on the 
chin as it fell. Its head separated from its neck, leaving 
its flesh-face behind. Xantcha understood instantly why 
Urza could not purge his brother's last memory from his 
mind. She reached for the not-wooden staff and realized, 
belatedly, that there'd been witnesses.
    Phyrexian witnesses. Four of them were surging out of 
the recesses to block her path. They all had staves, and 
she'd lost the advantage of surprise. The sanctuary roof 
had a smoke vent above the altar. Xantcha grabbed the 
priest's head instead of its staff as she braced herself 
for the agony of wringing a sphere from the cyst while the 
armor was still in place around her. There was blood in the 
sphere, but it resisted the efforts of the Phyrexians and 
their staves to bring it down as it expanded and lifted her 
out of immediate danger.
    Willpower got Xantcha drifting silently just above the 
rooftops south of the temple. But willpower couldn't lift 
her high enough to catch the winds that would carry her to 
true safety beyond the walls. The cyst couldn't maintain 
both the sphere and the armor for long. Already, knife 
pains ripped through her stomach, and her mouth had filled 
with blood.
    Woozy and desperate, Xantcha went to ground in the 
foulest midden she could find: a gaping pit behind a 
boneyard. She thought she'd die when the sphere dissolved 
on contact with the midden scum, and she found herself 
shoulder-deep in fermenting filth. With a death grip on the 
metal-mesh head-if she dropped it, she'd never have the 
courage to fish it out-Xantcha released her armor as well 
and hoped that uncontrolled nausea wouldn't prevent the 
cyst from recharging itself.
    By sunset, when swarms of insects mistook her for their 
evening meal, Xantcha was ready to surrender to any 
Phyrexian brave enough to haul her out of her hiding place. 
She thought about gods and the inconvenience of not 
believing in any of them, then filled her lungs for a yawn. 
With a single, sharp pain that threatened, for one horrible 
moment, to fold her in half, the cyst discharged. Xantcha 
gasped her way through the mnemonic that would create the 
sphere, and just when she thought she had no endurance 
left, it began to swell.
    She was seen-certainly she was scented-rising above the 
shambles' roofs, slowly at first, then faster as fresh air 
lifted her up. There were screams, clanging alarms and, 
from the open roof of the fire god's temple, a diaphanous 
gout of black sorcery that fell short of its moving target. 
The winds blew westward, into the sunset. Xantcha let them 
carry her, until the moon was high, before she began the 
long tacks that would take her to Urza's tower.
    The moon was a waxing crescent when Xantcha set down on 
the tower roof five nights later. Urza wasn't expecting her 
and wasn't pleased to have her within his tower walls. 
Xantcha had abandoned her clothes and scrubbed herself raw 
with sand and water without quite ridding herself of the 
midden's aroma. But Urza reserved his greatest displeasure 
for the metal-mesh head she stood on his work table.
    "Where did you find that?" he demanded and stood like 
stone while Xantcha raced through an account of her 
misadventure in the southern city.
    "You struck it down, before witnesses? And you brought 
it here, as a trophy? What were you thinking?"
    Urza's enraged eyes lit up the chamber. The air around 
him shimmered with between-worlds light. Xantcha thought it 
wise to armor herself, but when she opened her mouth Urza 
enveloped her in stifling paralysis. Naked and defenseless, 
she endured a scathing lecture about the stupidity of newts 
who exposed themselves to their enemies and jeopardized the 
delicate plans of their friends.
    "I smelled glistening oil," Xantcha countered when, 
toward dawn, Urza released her from his spell. She was 
angry by then and incautious. "I was curious. I didn't know 
it came from Phyrexian priests. Maybe it was just a 
coincidental cooking sauce! I didn't plan to destroy a 
Phyrexian, but it seemed better than letting it kill me, 
and as for witnesses, well, I am sorry about that. I didn't 
notice them standing there until it was too late. And I 
brought the head because I thought I'd better have proof, 
because I wasn't sure you'd believe me without, it. Should 
I have let myself be killed? Or captured? Maybe they could 
have dropped my head on the roof before they attacked! 
Would that have been better? Wiser, on my part?"
    A silver globe appeared in Urza's hand. He cocked his 
arm.
    "Go ahead, throw it. Then what? Make me into another 
mistake you can mourn? You can't change the past, Urza. The 
Phyrexians were here before I found them. Empty-headed fool 
that I am, I thought you'd want to know whatever I could 
learn, however I learned it. Waste not, want not, I thought 
you'd be glad I survived!" The globe vanished in a shower 
of bright red sparks. "I am. Truly. But they will have 
found me."
    "Phyrexians are here, Urza. It's not necessarily the 
same thing. How do you suppose they found Dominaria in the 
first place? Searcher-priests look for more than artifacts. 
That thing-" Xantcha gestured at the metal-mesh head-"had a 
face no one would look twice at. The searchers have found a 
nice, little world, ripe for the plucking. They've set 
themselves up in the fire god's cult because what Phyrexia 
needs more than artifacts is ore for its furnaces, and 
Moag's a metal-rich world."
    "They'll destroy Moag, Xantcha. It will all happen 
again." "Well, isn't that what you've been waiting for, a 
chance to right old wrongs?"
    "No. No, the price is too high."
    "Urza!" Xantcha lost patience with him. "Forget about 
listening to me, do you ever listen to yourself?"
    He stared at her, mortal-eyed, but as if she were a 
stranger rather than his companion of the centuries. "Go, 
Xantcha. I need to think. I will come for you at the full 
moon."
    "Maybe I don't want to 'walk away from this. Maybe I 
want my vengeance!"
    "Go, child! You're disturbing me. I must think. I will 
tell you my decision when I've made it, not before."
    They were back to child again, and he had made his 
decision. Xantcha had been with Urza too long not to know 
when he was lying to her. He'd made a hole in the roof, and 
she took advantage of it. She gathered the weapons she 
hadn't discarded and the sack that held her traveling stash 
of gold and gems, these things the midden hadn't damaged at 
all. Only the sack desperately needed replacing, so she 
took one of Urza's and swapped the contents before yawning 
out the sphere. The hole closed as soon as she'd passed 
through it.
    Morning had come, a beautiful morning with mackerel 
clouds streaking north by northeast, the direction Xantcha 
needed, if she were going back to her cottage, which she 
decided after a heartbeat's thought that she wasn't. 
Xantcha set her mind south, to the fire god's city. Urza 
was going to leave Moag, and despite her threats, Xantcha 
knew she'd go with him, but if he'd intended simply to 
leave, they could have 'walked already. They'd left other 
worlds with less warning. No, Urza had something planned, 
and Xantcha wanted to witness it.
    As soon as Xantcha reached the coast, she found a 
prosperous villa and sneaked into it by moonlight. She left 
two silver coins and another world's garnet brooch on a 
night stand, in exchange for her pick of the young heir's 
wardrobe. His britches were tight and his boots too big, 
but overall she considered it a fair swap. She didn't 
linger until sunrise to learn the household's opinion.
    Xantcha scuffed up her fine clothes when she reached 
the southern city and wove a tale of tragedy and 
coincidence for the apothecary whose shop window had the 
best view of the fire god's temple. The owl-eyed merchant 
didn't believe a word Xantcha said, but she could read, 
count, and compound a script better than either of his 
journeymen. He took her in with the promise of two meals a 
day, one hot, one cold, and a night-pallet across the 
threshold, which was what she'd wanted from the start.
    She settled in to wait: one day, two days, three, four. 
Urza came on the fifth. Or rather, a ball of fire descended 
from the stars during the fifth night. It struck the temple 
with hideous force. Masonry, stone and burning timbers flew 
across the plaza, smashing through shutters and walls. 
Xantcha got her sword from its hiding place, bid an 
unobserved farewell to the apothecary, then went hunting 
for Phyrexians through the smoke.
    Xantcha found a few, as terrified as any born-folk, or 
more so since glistening oil burnt with a hot blue flame. 
She put an end to their misery and with her armor to 
protect her from both flames and smoke made her way into 
the sanctuary. The journeymen had succumbed to her 
questions, and told her where the fire god's priests had 
their private quarters. Which was where Xantcha expected to 
find-and steal-another ambulator.
    She found a passage back to Phyrexia, but it was unlike 
any ambulator she'd seen before. Instead of a bottomless 
black pool, the flesh-faced priests had a solid-seeming 
disk that rose edgewise from the stone floor. Face on, it 
was as black as the ambulators Xantcha was familiar with. 
From behind, it simply wasn't there. One thing hadn't 
changed; it still had a palm-sized panel with seven black 
jewels where the disk emerged from the floor. Since she 
couldn't roll the standing-portal up and take it with her, 
Xantcha smashed the panel with her sword.
    Smoke and screams belched out of the black disk before 
it collapsed. Xantcha guessed she'd closed it just in time. 
A pair of lines gouged into the stone was all that remained 
when the smoke cleared. She was rummaging through shelves 
and cabinets, hoping to find a familiar ambulator, when the 
air grew heavy. The other kind of between-worlds passage, 
Urza's kind of 'walking passage, was opening.
    "It's me!" she shouted as he came into view.
    "Xantcha! What are you doing here? I could have killed 
you."
    They never had established whether Urza's armor would 
protect her from Urza's wrath or Urza's mistakes.
    "I came for the ambulator. I knew they'd have one, and 
I wasn't sure you'd think to roll it." He hadn't when he 
rode the dragon into Phyrexia. "It was a new kind," she 
admitted. "I couldn't roll it up."
    Urza stared at the lines in the floor. "No, it was a 
very old kind. Did you destroy it?"
    He was so calm and reasonable, it worried her. "Yes. I 
broke the gems. There were screams, then nothing."
    "Well, perhaps it is enough. If not, I have left my 
mark above, and I will leave a trail. Are you ready to 
'walk, or are you staying here?"
    "You want the Phyrexians to follow us?"
    Urza nodded, smiling, and held out his hand. "I want 
them to pursue us with all their strength and leave Moag in 
peace."
    Xantcha took his hand and said, "I don't think it works 
that way," but they were between-worlds and her words were 
lost.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Xantcha never knew if the second part of Urza's plan 
bore fruit, but the first was successful beyond his wildest 
dreams. He stopped laying a deliberate trail after the 
fourth world beyond Moag, but that didn't stop the 
searcher-priests and the avenger teams they led.
    Sometimes she and Urza got a year's respite between 
attacks, never more. Urza reached into his past for 
sentries he called Yotians, never-fail guardians shaped 
from whatever materials a new world offered: clay, stone, 
wood, or ice.
    He'd 'walked her to ice worlds before. They were dark, 
airless places where the sun was lost among the stars and 
the ice as hard as steel. Save for the gas worlds, where 
there was no solid ground at all, ice worlds were the least 
hospitable worlds in the multi-verse. They never stayed 
long on ice, no matter how close the pursuit.
    Then, years after Moag by Urza's reckoning, he found a 
world where the ice was melting, and the air was cold but 
breathable. Once it had been a world like Moag. Whole 
forests and cities could be glimpsed through the ice when 
the light was right. Now it was a brutal place, with men 
who'd forgotten what cities were.
    Xantcha thought it was as inhospitable as any airless 
world, but Urza disagreed and she was disinclined to argue. 
He hadn't slept soundly since they left Moag. The simple 
act of closing his eyes was enough to trigger the 
nightmares-hallucinations of the past, of the Ineffable. To 
Xantcha's abiding horror, the forbidden name had returned 
to Urza's memory and came easily to him when he battled 
through his nightmares.
    Years without proper sleep had taken their toll. Urza's 
restlessness had grown into a sort of frenzy. He was never 
still, always pacing or wringing his hands. He babbled 
constantly. Xantcha fashioned wax earplugs so she could 
sleep. With Phyrexians on their trail, they never strayed 
far apart.
    And Urza needed her. Without her, Urza often didn't 
know what was real from what was not. Without her gentle 
nagging, he would have forgotten to carve the Yotians or 
given them the appropriate orders. Without her willingness 
to brave his hallucinations he would have gouged the 
gemstone eyes from his skull and put an end to his misery.
    Sitting on the opposite side of a fire, with a score of 
icy Yotians clanking patrol through the frigid night, 
Xantcha wondered if she should let him die. They were each 
over eight hundred years old and though she could still 
pass for an unbearded youth, Urza looked his age, or worse. 
The arcane power that enabled him to change his appearance 
at will had become erratic. On nights like tonight, even 
though he wasn't hallucinating, Urza seemed to be 
surrounded by a between-worlds miasma. Viewed from some 
angles, he had no substance at all, just seething light 
that hurt her eyes.
    "Will you eat? Can you eat?" Xantcha asked gently, 
trying to ignore the way the hearth flames were visible 
through his robes.
    Food was no substitute for sleep and dreams, but it 
helped keep Urza looking mortal. She'd seasoned the stew 
pot with the aromatic herbs that had tempted him before. 
But it didn't work this time.
    "I'm hollow," he said, a disturbingly accurate 
assessment. "Food won't fill me, Xantcha. Eat all you can. 
Pack the rest. I feel the eyes of the multiverse upon us."
    Xantcha lost her appetite. When Urza thought the 
multiverse was watching him, Phyrexians weren't usually far 
behind. She forced down a small portion-the between-worlds 
was easier on a near-empty stomach-and filled a waterskin 
with the rest. The ice-shaped Yotians were almost as 
restless as Urza. Xantcha slung the waterskin and other 
essentials from a shoulder harness and checked her weapons. 
The second-best way to deal with Phyrexians was to batter 
them apart. She'd long since abandoned her Moag sword in 
favor of a short club with a jagged chunk of pure iron for 
its head.
    The best way to deal with Phyrexian avengers, however, 
was to hide, and let Urza demolish them with sorcery and 
artifice, then wait until he shaped himself into a man 
again. Waiting was the difficult part. As the years and 
worlds and ambushes accumulated, Urza had never had a 
problem vanquishing the avengers, but increasingly he lost 
himself in the aftermath. Two ambushes ago, he'd devolved 
into a pillar of rainbow light that shimmered for three 
days before condensing into a solid, familiar form. 
Considering the brutal, backwater worlds they frequented, 
Xantcha desperately wanted an ambulator and the wherewithal 
to set its black stones for a hospitable world.
    She'd raised the subject as often as she'd dared, which 
didn't include this night with the ice Yotians clattering 
like crystals through the shadows.
    The ambush came at dawn, in gusts of hot, sour 
Phyrexian wind. There were a score of them, not counting 
the two searcher-priests who squatted beside the flat-black 
ambulator. This time the avengers resembled huge turtles 
with bowl-shaped carapaces and four broad, shovel-like 
feet, ideal for churning through snow and ice. Instead of 
claws or teeth, their weapons were beams of dark radiance 
that shot through an opening where a turtle's head would 
emerge from its shell.
    Xantcha left the turtles for Urza and the Yotians. Safe 
in her armor and screaming loudly, she charged the 
searcher-priests instead, hoping to steal their ambulator. 
They took one look at her and retreated into the ambulator, 
rolling it up behind them, abandoning the avengers. She 
cursed them for their cowardice, but searchers were hard to 
replace. They were subtle for Phyrexians, far more subtle 
than avengers who, because they were so powerful, were also 
stupid.
    She supposed the searchers could bring reinforcements, 
though, so far, once they left, they'd stayed gone. But the 
other skirmishes had been over sooner. Ice was not the 
ideal defense when the avengers' weapon was heat. The 
Yotians had been utterly destroyed without bringing down a 
single Phyrexian, which meant that Urza had to face them 
all. He had the skill and power, though the turtles were a 
bit tougher, a bit nastier they'd been in the last ambush, 
as if Phyrexia were learning from its failures-a 
frightening notion in and of itself.
    There were only eight of the avengers left. Urza had 
destroyed two of those with dazzling streaks of raw power 
from his jeweled eyes. No one learned faster than Urza. He 
never tired nor depleted his resources. So long as there 
was substance beneath his feet or stars in the sky 
overhead, Urza the Artificer could work his uniquely potent 
magic.
    Then, suddenly, his strikes became indecisive.
    A turtle scuttled forward unchallenged and knocked Urza 
backward; the first time Xantcha had ever seen him touched 
in battle. He destroyed it with a glut of flame, but not 
before the other turtles pelted him with bursts of 
darkness.
    After that Xantcha expected Urza to make short work of 
the enemy. Instead he became vaporous, a man of light and 
shadow. A turtle paw passed directly through him. Xantcha 
thought it was another of Urza's tactical surprises, until 
she watched his counter-strike pass through the turtle.
    Xantcha had imagined the end many times, but she never 
thought the end would come from turtles on an ice-bound 
world.
    Her armor would protect her . . . probably. Her club 
would almost certainly have no effect on avengers meant to 
destroy Urza the Artificer, but Xantcha would sooner face 
her personal end right here, right now, than risk capture 
and return to Phyrexia, or-even worse-eternity on this ice-
bound world. She leapt onto the back of the nearest turtle 
and took aim at the forward gap in its carapace.
    The turtle proved quite agile, bucking like an unbroken 
horse in its efforts to throw Xantcha off. She held on 
until two of the other avengers began targeting her instead 
of Urza. The armor held, barely. Xantcha felt the heat of 
dark magic, front and back, and the crack of her ribs as 
they began to break, one by one, under the hammer-and-anvil 
pressure.
    The last thing Xantcha saw was Urza, brighter than the 
sun....
    Not a bad sight to carry into the darkness.
 
                        CHAPTER 13
 
    Summer had come to the Ohran ridge some two months 
after Ratepe arrived. Grass in every shade of green rippled 
in the wind beneath a blue crystal sky. Xantcha's sphere 
rose easily, caught a westward breeze, and began the 
journey to Efuan Pincar.
    "Do you think this is going to work?" Ratepe asked when 
the cottage had disappeared into the folded foothills.
    She didn't answer. Ratepe gave her a sulky look, which 
she also ignored. Still sulking, he began rearranging their 
traveling gear. Xantcha's head brushed the inner curve. 
Ratepe, who was a head-plus taller, was at a much greater 
disadvantage. With a dramatic show of determination, he 
shoved the largest, heaviest box behind them and 
upholstered it with food sacks. Although his efforts made 
the sphere easier to maneuver, if he didn't settle down 
Xantcha thought she might finish the journey alone.
    "I don't think I've ever had cushions up here before," 
she said, trying to be pleasant, hoping pleasantry would be 
enough to calm her companion.
    "I do what I can," he replied, still sulking.
    Ratepe had a flair for solving problems, which didn't 
seem to depend on the images he gleaned from Urza's 
Weakstone eye.
    Even Urza had noticed it and made a point of discussing 
things with him that he'd never have mentioned to her. 
Xantcha told herself this was exactly what she'd wanted-an 
Urza who paid attention to the world around him. Of course, 
Urza thought he was talking to his long-dead brother, and 
Ratepe, though he played his part well, wanted more than 
conversation.
    These days, Ratepe's mind swam in the memories of a man 
who'd been Urza's peer in artifice. He'd absorbed all the 
theories of artifact creation, but as clever as he was with 
sacks and boxes, he was awkward at the worktable. Perhaps 
if he'd been willing to start with simple things . . . but 
if Ratepe had had the temperament for easy beginnings, the 
Weakstone probably would have ignored him, as it had always 
ignored Xantcha.
    He'd tried pure magic where Xantcha had been certain he 
would succeed. Urza always said that magic was rooted in 
the land. Ratepe's devotion to Efuan Pincar was the 
touchstone of his life, and magic often came both late and 
sudden into a mortal's life, but it wouldn't enter 
Ratepe's, no matter how earnestly he invited it. The lowest 
blow, however, had come after he'd badgered Urza into 
concocting another cyst.
    Ratepe had gulped the lump without a heartbeat's 
hesitation and writhed in agony for two days before he let 
Urza dissolve it. One artifact poisoning wasn't enough. 
He'd tried twice more, until Urza-who knew somewhere in the 
fathomless depths of his being that Ratepe was an ordinary 
young man and not his brother-refused to brew up another 
one.
    "I don't mind doing the heavy work," Xantcha said. The 
sphere was moving nicely on its own. She laid her hand on 
his arm. "I like the company . . . the friendship."
    Ratepe was more than a friend, though both of them were 
careful not to put the difference into words. The cottage 
had only two rooms. Her room had only one bed. The 
difference had come suddenly. One moment they were each 
alone, ignoring another rainy night. The next, they were on 
the bed, sitting near each other, then touching. For 
warmth, he'd said, and Xantcha had agreed, as if curiosity 
had never gotten her into trouble before. As if she hadn't 
known the difference between curiosity and need and been 
coldly willing to take advantage of it.
    It had been awkward at first. Xantcha was, as she'd 
warned, a Phyrexian newt, a vat-grown creature whose 
purpose had never been to love another or beget children. 
But Ratepe was nothing if not persistent in the face of 
challenge, and the problems, though inconvenient, had been 
surmounted without artifice or magic. He was satisfied. 
Xantcha was surprised-astonished beyond all the words in 
all the languages she knew-to discover that being in love 
had nothing to do with being born.
    Ratepe laced his fingers through hers. "I could do 
more. You never made good on your threat to make me cook my 
own food."
    "There's only one hearth. I haven't had time to make 
another."
    "That's what I mean." Ratepe tightened his hand. "You 
do everything. Urza doesn't notice, but I do. You're the 
one who makes the decisions."
    Xantcha laughed. "You don't know Urza very well."
    "I wouldn't know him at all if you hadn't decided to 
bring me here. I wake up in the morning, and for a few 
moments I think I'm back in Efuan Pincar with my family and 
that it's all been a dream. I think about telling my little 
brother, then I look over at you-"
    She made an unnecessary adjustment to the sphere's 
drift, an excuse to reclaim her hand. "Urza's coming back 
to life, letting go of his obsessions. That's your doing."
    Ratepe sighed. "I hadn't noticed."
    Ratepe, like Mishra, had a tendency to sulk. Xantcha 
had reread The Antiquity Wars looking for ways to buoy his 
spirits. She'd even asked Urza what could put an end to 
Ratepe-or Mishra's- black, self-defeating moods. Silence, 
Urza had replied, had always been the best tactic when his 
brother sulked. Mishra couldn't bear to be ignored. Be 
patient, out wait him and his quicksilver temper would find 
another target.
    Xantcha had learned endurance without mastering 
patience. "For the first time in two and a half centuries, 
Urza's worktable isn't covered with mountains. He's making 
artifacts again." Xantcha thumped the box behind her. "New 
artifacts, not the same gnats. He pays attention when you 
talk to him. Why do you think we're going up to Efuan 
Pincar?"
    "To appease me? To keep me in my place?"
    Xantcha's temper rose. "Don't be ridiculous."
    "No? I've done what you wanted. He calls me Mishra and 
I answer. I listen to the Weakstone and remember things I 
never lived, that no one should have lived. When you or he 
says that I'm so much like Mishra ... by Avohir's book, I 
want to go outside and smash my skull with a rock. It's no 
compliment to be compared with a cold-blooded murderer, and 
that's what they both are, Xantcha. That's what they always 
were. They care more about things than people. But I don't 
do it, because all I've got to replace everything I've lost 
is you. You asked me to be Mishra, so I am. All I've asked 
of Urza is that he care enough to send a few of his 
precious artifacts for Efuan Pincar."
    "He does. He has. We're taking these to Pincar City, 
aren't we?"
    "Admit it, you'd both rather be rooting around in 
Baszerat or Morvern. You've been down there, what, seven, 
eight times?"
    "Six, and you could have come. The lines are clearer 
there. Urza recognizes the strategies. It's your war all 
over again, just smaller."
    "Not my war, damn it! If I were going to fight a war it 
wouldn't be in Baszerat or Morvern!"
    Xantcha made the sphere tumble and swerve, but those 
tricks no longer worked. Ratepe had overcome his fear of 
the open sky. He kept his balance as easily as she did and 
knew perfectly well that she wasn't going to let them drop 
to the ground.
    "You're wasting your time. Get rid of the Phyrexians in 
Baszerat or Morvern, and they'll keep on fighting each 
other. That's what they do."
    "And Efuands are so much better than Baszerati swine 
and Morvernish sheep, or have I got that backward? Are the 
Baszerati the swine or the sheep?"
    "They're all pig-keepers."
    Belatedly, Xantcha clamped her teeth together and said 
nothing. She should have taken Urza's advice, hard as 
ignoring Rat was when they couldn't get more than a 
handspan apart. The sphere came around on two long tacks 
before he saw fit to speak again.
    "Do you think it will work?"
    The same question he'd asked as they'd risen up from 
the cottage, but the whiny edge was gone from his voice. 
Xantcha risked an honest answer.
    "Maybe. The artifacts will work. They'll be our eyes 
and ears and noses in the walls. We'll find out where the 
Phyrexians are, and if we know that, maybe we'll be able to 
figure out what they're up to, what can be done to thwart 
them."
    "We know they're in the Red-Stripes and we know the 
Red-Stripes are doing the Shratta's dirty work. If there 
are any Shratta left. I want to get to Pincar City and get 
you into Avohir's temple. I want to know what kinds of oils 
you smell there. I want you in the palace, so I'll know 
what's happened to Tabarna. Has he become another Mishra, a 
man on the outside, a Phyrexian on the inside? Avohir's 
mercy-I was so certain Urza would listen when I said, 
'Brother, don't let the Phyrexians do to another man what 
they did to me!' And what was his response? Pebbles! We're 
going to scatter pebbles then come back, who knows when, 
and see if any of the pebbles have changed color!" Ratepe 
took a breath and began speaking in a dead-on imitation of 
Urza, "That way I will know for certain if my enemy has 
come to Efuan Pincar. . . .
    "Sometimes I'm not so sure he is Urza. Maybe he was 
once someone like me, then the Mightstone took over his 
life. Avohir! If a man's a murderer, what's the use of a 
conscience? During the war, the real Urza and the real 
Mishra both made hunter-killers, none of this pebbles-on-
the-path, wait-and-see nonsense. They went right after each 
other."
    "Urza doesn't want to repeat his old mistakes." Waste 
not, want not-she was defending Urza with the very 
arguments that had infuriated her for millennia. "The 
situation in Efuan Pincar is different. He's not sure 
what's going on, so he's being careful."
    "And putting all his real efforts into Baszerat and 
Morvern! Avohir! How many Efuand villages have to burn 
before they're important?"
    "I wouldn't know," Xantcha snarled. "Dominaria's the 
only world he's ever come back to. Everyplace else, he's 
just 'walked off and left to its fate. Urza may not be 
doing what you'd like him to do, but he is doing something. 
He listens to you, Ratepe. He's never really listened to 
anyone before. You should be pleased with yourself."
    "Not while my people are dying. Urza's got the power, 
Xantcha, and the obligation to use it."
    Xantcha was going to mutter something about men who put 
ideas first, but resisted the impulse. Prickly silence 
persisted throughout the afternoon. She brought the sphere 
down with the sun. Ratepe made an abortive attempt to help 
set up their camp, but they weren't ready to talk civilly 
to each other. Xantcha banished him to nearby trees until 
she got the fire lit.
    The sky was radiant lavender before she went looking 
for her troublesome companion. Ratepe had seated himself on 
the west-facing bole of a fallen tree. Xantcha got no 
reaction as she approached and was rekindling her 
irritation when she realized his cheeks were wet. Compleat 
Phyrexians didn't cry, but newts sometimes did, until they 
learned it didn't help. "Supper's on the fire."
    Ratepe started, realized he'd been weeping, and wiped 
his face roughly on his sleeve before meeting her eyes. 
"I'm not hungry." "Still angry with me?"
    He turned west again. "The Sea-star's above the sun. 
The Festival of Fruits is over."
    A single yellow star shone in the lavender. "Berulu," 
she said, giving it the old Argivian name that Urza used. 
It would be another week before it rose high enough to be 
seen from the cottage. "I'm eighteen."
    Born-folk, being mortal and having parents and usually 
living their whole lives on a single world, kept close 
track of their ages. "Is that a significant age?" she asked 
politely. Some years were more important than others.
    Ratepe swallowed and spoke in a husky voice. "You and 
Urza don't live by any calendar. One day's the same as the 
next. There isn't any reason . . . I-I forgot my birthday. 
It must have been three, maybe four days ago. Last year-
last year we were together. My mother roasted a duck, and 
my little brother gave me a honey-cake that was full of 
sand. My father gave me a book, Sup-pulan's Philosophy. The 
Shratta burnt it. For them, there is only one book. Or it 
wasn't the Shratta but the Red-Stripes doing Shratta work 
who burnt it. It got burnt, that's enough. Burnt and gone." 
Ratepe hid his face in his hands as memory got the better 
of him. "Go away."
    "You think about them?"
    "Go away," he repeated, then added, "Please."
    Urza's grief had hardened into obsession. Xantcha 
understood obsession. Ratepe's flowed freely from his heart 
and mystified her. "I could roast a duck for you, if I can 
find one. Will that help?"
    "Not now, Xantcha. I know you care, but not now. 
Whatever you say, it only reminds me of what's gone."
    She retreated. "I'll be by the fire until it is good 
and truly dark. Then I will come back here, if you will not 
come down. This is wild country, Ratepe, and you're not . . 
." The right word, the word that wouldn't offend him, 
failed to spring into her mind.
    "I'm not what? Not clever enough to take care of 
myself? Not strong enough? Not immortal or Phyrexian? You 
call me Ratepe now, and you say that you love me, but I'm 
still a slave, still Rat."
    Agreeing with him would start a war. "Come down to the 
fire. I promise I will not say anything."
    Xantcha kept her promise. It wasn't difficult. Ratepe 
wrapped himself in a blanket and curled up with his back to 
her. She couldn't easily count the nights she'd spent in 
silence and alone. None of them had seemed as long. When he 
stretched himself awake after dawn, Xantcha waited for him 
to speak first.
    "I'm going into the palace when we get to Pincar."
    She'd hoped for a less inflammatory start to the day. 
"No. Impossible. You agreed to stay at an inn with our 
supplies while I scattered Urza's pebbles in the places 
where we don't want to find Phyrexians. Your task is to 
help me find the Shratta strongholds in the countryside 
once I'm done in the city. We need to know if there are any 
real Shratta left."
    "I know, but I'm going to the palace. Straight to 
Tabarna, if he's there, whether he's a man or something 
else. Every Efuand has the right to petition our king. If 
he's a man, I'll tell him the truth."
    Xantcha planned her reply as she set aside a mug of 
cold tea. "And if he isn't?" She'd learned from Urza, truth 
and logic were worthless with madmen. It was always better 
to let them rant until they ran themselves down.
    "Then they'll kill me, and you'll have to tell Urza 
what happe-nen, and maybe then he'll do something."
    She grimaced into her tea. "That's a burden I don't 
want to carry. So, let's assume you survive. Let's assume 
you're face-to-face with Tabarna. What truth will you tell 
your king?"
    "I will tell him that Efuands must stop killing 
Efuands. I'll tell Tabarna what the Red-Stripes have done."
    "Very bold, but with or without Phyrexians, your king 
already knows what the Red-Stripes are doing in the 
Shratta's name."
    "He can't..." Ratepe's voice trailed off. He'd seen too 
much in his short life to dismiss her out of hand.
    "He must."
    "Not Tabarna. He wouldn't. If he's still in Pincar 
City, if he's still a man, then he thinks what I thought, 
that it's all the Shratta. He doesn't know the truth. He 
can't."
    Xantcha sipped her tea. "All right, Rat, assume you're 
right. The king of Efuan Pincar, a man like yourself, still 
sits on his throne. He doesn't know that there are 
Phyrexians among his Red-Stripe guards. He doesn't know 
what those red-striped thugs have done. He doesn't know 
that, in all likelihood, the Shratta were the first to be 
exterminated. If Tabarna doesn't know any of this exists, 
then who else in Efuan Pincar does? And how has this 
nameless, faceless person kept your king in ignorance all 
these years?"
    Ratepe's whole face tightened in uncomfortable silence. 
"No." not a denial, but a prayer, "Not Tabarna."
    "Best hope that Tabarna is skin stretched over metal. 
You'll hurt less, when the time comes, if you're not 
fighting a man who sold his soul to Phyrexia. In the 
meantime, until I know where the Phyrexians are and who 
they are, we will rely on Urza's pebbles and you will stay 
out of trouble and danger."
    Ratepe wasn't happy. He wasn't stupid, either. After a 
slight nod, he busied himself folding his blanket.
    That day's journey was easier and much quieter. Ratepe 
spent most of their time aloft staring at the horizon, but 
there were no tears and Xantcha let him be. Most of her 
journeys had been taken in silence, and though she'd 
quickly grown accustomed to Ratepe's company and 
conversation, old habits returned quickly.
    She brought them over the Pincar City walls in the 
darkness between moon set and sunrise six days later. The 
sky was clear, the streets were deserted, and the guards 
they could see were more interested in staying awake until 
the end of their watch than in a dark speck moving across a 
dark sky. Xantcha decided to risk a pass above the palace. 
Few things were as useful as a bird's eye view of 
unfamiliar territory.
    A few slow-moving servants were at work in the 
courtyards, getting a jump on their chores before the sun 
rose. Sea breezes and frequent showers kept the coastal 
city livable in the summer, but the air was always moist 
and if a person had the choice, work was easier done before 
dawn than in mid-afternoon.
    Xantcha was building a mind-map of the royal 
apartments, servant quarters, and bureaucratic halls when 
Ratepe tugged on her sleeve and drew her attention to the 
stables. His lips touched her hair as he whispered.
    "Trouble."
    Six men, cloaked head to toe but otherwise unmarked, 
led their horses toward the postern gate-the palace's 
private gate. Probably it wasn't anything significant. 
Palaces throughout the multiverse had similarly placed 
gates because royal affairs sometimes required the sort of 
discretion that others might call deceit. But while it was 
still dark they were in no danger of being seen. Xantcha 
wove her fingers, and the sphere floated behind the men.
    The tide was out, exposing a narrow rocky spit between 
the ocean and the harbor. The not-unpleasant tang of 
seaweed and salt-water mud permeated the sphere. Xantcha 
took a deep breath. No glistening oil. Whoever the six 
cloaked men were, they weren't Phyrexian.
    "Messengers," she decided softly and the sphere began 
to drift backward with the sea breeze.
    "Follow them."
    "They're nothing, Rat."
    "They're trouble. I smell it."
    He knew she detected Phyrexians by scent. She knew his 
nose wasn't sensitive. "You can't smell trouble, and you 
can't see it, either. We've got to find an alley where we 
can set ourselves down without drawing a crowd."
    "Xantcha, please? I've just got a feeling about them. I 
want to know where they're going. I'll stay at the inn. I 
won't give you any hassle, just-follow them?"
    "No complaints when we're stuck hiding in a gully 
somewhere until after sundown?"
    "Not a word."
    "Not a sound or a gesture, either," she grumbled, but 
she shifted her hand and they scooted over the palace wall.
    Their quarry stayed along the shoreline, out of side of 
the guards on the Pincar walls. Ratepe was likely right. 
They weren't up to any good, but that could mean almost 
anything, maybe even a meeting with the Shratta. That would 
be worth knowing about, but she wasn't prepared for 
confrontation.
    "We're not getting involved," Xantcha warned. They'd 
fallen far enough behind the six men that Xantcha wasn't 
worried about being overheard. She did worry about sun. 
Dominaria wasn't a world where large man-made objects 
routinely whizzed through the sky. Urza's ornithopters, 
like Urza himself, were remembered mostly for their 
wrongheadedness. She'd followed men for days and never been 
noticed, but men who were, as Ratepe proclaimed, trouble, 
tended to looked over their shoulder frequently and might 
notice a shadow where one shouldn't be.
    "Not unless we have to." "No unlesses, Rat. We're not 
getting involved." "We've got more than we had when you 
sent me into a burning village."
    True enough. Since she knew there were Phyrexians loose 
in Efuan Pincar, Xantcha had fattened their arsenal with a 
variety of exploding artifacts and a pair of firepots. 
Having protection wasn't the same as using it. She hadn't 
survived all these centuries by blundering into someone 
else's trouble.
    "We're following them, that's all. In the very unlikely 
event that they're going to meet with a Phyrexian demon, 
I'll think about it." She thought about it as long as it 
took her to spin the sphere around and push it, with all of 
her might, toward the opposite horizon.
    Although Xantcha and Ratepe could still see the city 
walls, the riders had reached a point where they were 
beyond the Pincar guards' sight. Accordingly, they mounted 
and galloped their horses south.
    "They're in a hurry," Ratepe said as Xantcha pushed the 
loaded sphere to its limit. "I wonder where they're going."
    "Not far. Not at that speed."
    The laden sphere couldn't keep pace. They lost sight of 
the riders, but not the dust cloud their horses raised. 
Xantcha took the opportunity to tack behind them and be in 
the east with the sun when they caught up again.
    "You said you'd follow them!" Ratepe said, as the 
sphere veered sunward.
    "You said no complaints."
    "If we were on their tails."
    "We're on their sun-side flank, it's safer. Trust me."
    As expected, the horses slowed, the dust ebbed, and the 
sphere carried Xantcha and Ratepe close enough to see that 
the men had reined in at the grassy edge of an abandoned 
orchard and dismounted.
    "That's odd," Xantcha muttered. A warrior's sunrise 
ceremony? She'd seen far stranger traditions.
    Ratepe had no ideas or comments. Perhaps he was feeling 
foolish or thinking about the long day ahead of him, 
hunkered down in a gully, forbidden by his honor to 
complain. Xantcha tapped him on the shoulder.
    "See that spot down there on the grass?"
    She pointed at a dark splotch in the west. Ratepe 
nodded.
    "That's our shadow. I want you to keep a watch on it, 
and if I get careless and it gets close to those men or, 
especially, their horses, I want you to tell me. We're 
going in for a closer look."
    "I concede that you were right, and I'm a fool. Let's 
find some shade. The sun's just come up, and I'm sweating 
already."
    "Keep an eye on our shadow."
    Xantcha kept the sun squarely on their backs as they 
floated closer. There was no real danger. She'd been seen 
elsewhere, even shot at with arrows and spears, none of 
which could pierce the sphere. Sorcerers were more of a 
problem. But sorcerers-sorcerers with the power to damage 
with one of Urza's artifacts-were almost as easy to detect 
as Phyrexians and rarer than Phyrexians in Efuan Pincar.
    As they approached hearing distance, Xantcha reminded 
Ratepe to be quiet and brought the sphere into the orchard 
nearest the men who were trampling the grass in a rough 
circle about ten paces across. She didn't like what she 
saw.
    "If you sincerely believe in your god," she said 
softly, "start praying that I'm wrong."
    "What?"
    She held a finger to her lips.
    Ratepe wasn't successful with his prayers, or Avohir, 
the all-powerful Efuand god, was listening elsewhere that 
morning. They hadn't hovered among the trees for very long 
when one of the men pulled something black, shiny, and 
disk-shaped from his saddlebags.
    Xantcha made a fist with her non-navigational hand and 
swore in the lilting language of a pink-sky world where 
curses were considered art.
    "Trouble?" Ratepe asked.
    The six men had each grabbed onto the disk and were 
beginning to stretch it across the trampled grass, not the 
way she'd learned to open an ambulator, but it had been 
nearly two thousand years since she'd last seen one. 
Undoubtedly there'd been changes.
    "Big trouble. We're going to get involved. That's a 
passageway to Phyrexia that they're rolling out. Maybe 
they're going to visit the Ineffable, but more likely, 
there're sleepers coming in, and we're going to stop them, 
or die trying. You understand me?"
    Xantcha seized Ratepe's shoulder and forced him to look 
at her. "We either stop those men, or you make damn sure 
you don't survive, 'cause sleepers won't come through 
alone, and anything else that comes through that ambulator 
you don't ever want to meet."
    He went bloodless pale beneath his sweat and neither 
nodded nor spoke.
    "Understand?"
    "W-what can I do?"
    "They're not watching their backs. If we're lucky, we 
can set up the firepots, then you keep dropping Urza's toys 
into them, one after another."
    Ratepe nodded, and Xantcha curled her fingers, raising 
the sphere slightly, then backing off to the far edge of 
the orchard, out of sight of the six men, but well within 
the firepots' range. She brought it down carefully. The 
thump of their supplies hitting the ground as the sphere 
collapsed wasn't loud enough to disturb the birds in the 
nearest trees.
    Xantcha kissed Ratepe once before she yawned out a 
layer of armor that would make affection pointless. The 
firepots were tubes shaped roughly like men's boots, with 
the important difference that when Xantcha unlaced them, 
their phloton linings glowed. She aimed them from memory. 
Close would be good enough with the canisters they'd be 
using. After she'd piled the fist-sized canisters at 
Ratepe's feet and dumped a pair-one filled with compressed 
naphtha, the other with glass shards-into the rapidly 
heating firepots, she handed Ratepe her smaller coin pouch.
    "Anyone gets too close, don't bother with your sword, 
just throw one of these at him and duck."
    Then the firepots let loose, and it was time to draw 
her sword and run.
    The Efuands were sword-armed but not armored. Xantcha 
planned to take one, maybe two, of them by surprise, and 
hoped that the firepots would do the same, but mostly she 
hoped that the Efuands would abandon the ambulator before 
it spat out reinforcements. The first part of her plan went 
well. She met a man charging through the trees, struggling 
to draw his sword. Xantcha slew him with a side cut across 
the gut. It was loud and messy but successful.
    One down, five to go.
    The firepots, whose trajectory was more height than 
distance, delivered both of Urza's exploding artifacts 
within twenty paces of the ambulator. They'd spooked the 
horses; all six had torn free and bolted, but the naphtha 
had fallen beyond the black pool, and the glass hadn't 
disabled any of the four men-two still at work anchoring 
the ambulator, two with their swords drawn and coming after 
her-that Xantcha could see.
    Two more canisters came hissing out of the morning 
sunlight. One fell on the rippling pool and vanished before 
it exploded. No time to imagine where it might have gone or 
what it might accomplish when it arrived. The second spread 
more glass shards near the two men working on the portal's 
rim. If she survived, Xantcha planned to tell Urza that 
glass shards weren't effective against Efuands. Though 
bloodied and clearly in pain, the pair stayed put.
    Four plus one was only five. Xantcha hoped Ratepe 
remembered the coins. Then she put him out of her mind. The 
swordsmen positioned themselves between her and the other 
pair of Efuands. She knew what they saw: an undersized 
youth with an undersized sword and no apparent armor. She 
knew how to take advantage of mis-perception. Her arm 
trembled, the tip of her sword pointed at the ground, and 
then she ran at the nearer of the pair.
    He thought he could beat her attack aside with a simple 
parry. That was his last mistake. The other thought he had 
an easy stroke across the back of her neck. He struck hard 
enough to drop Xantcha to one knee, but he'd been expecting 
more and failed to press what little advantage he had. 
Xantcha pivoted on her knee, got her weight behind the 
hilt, and thrust the blade up through his stomach to his 
heart.
    She left her sword in the corpse and took up his 
instead. Of the two remaining Efuands, one was on his knees 
fussing with the ambulator while the other stood guard over 
him. Black on black patterns flowed across the portal's 
surface. Xantcha didn't dare run across it.
    She could smell Phyrexia as the Efuand beat aside her 
first attack. He was the best of the men she'd faced so far 
and respectful. He stayed calm and balanced behind his 
sword, not in any hurry. Xantcha was in a hurry, and led 
with her empty, off-weapon hand, seizing his sword midway 
down the blade. It was a risky move. Urza's armor couldn't 
make her bigger or heavier than she naturally was. She 
couldn't always maintain her grip, and more than once she'd 
wound up with a dislocated shoulder.
    This time, surprise and luck were with her, at least 
long enough to plunge her sword in the swordsman's gut 
before she shoved him backward, off the blade and into the 
black pool. She kicked the kneeling Efuand in the chin, not 
a crippling, much less a killing blow, except that he, too, 
fell backward, into the now seething ambulator.
    Two more exploding artifacts arrived. One was simply 
loud and hurled her backward, away from the ambulator, but 
still the last direction she wanted to move. The other was 
fire that spread evenly across the black surface.
    Xantcha staggered back to the place where the last 
Efuand had been kneeling, the place where she expected to 
find a palm-sized panel with seven black jewels. The 
priests had changed the design. There was neither panel nor 
jewels. In their place Xantcha saw a smooth black stone, 
like Urza's magnifying lens, or like the ambulator itself. 
The fire still burnt. Nothing had emerged. She brought her 
sword down on the stone.
    The sword shattered.
    The fire vanished as if someone had inhaled it.
    And the black on black patterns had turned silver.
    "Run, Ratepe!" she shouted as loud as the armor 
permitted, and ignored her own advice.
    A Phyrexian emerged from the black pool moments later. 
It was a priest of some sort. There was too much metal, all 
of it articulated, for it to be anything less than a 
searcher, definitely not the scrap-made tender or teacher 
Xantcha had expected with a band of sleepers. It had a 
triangular head with faceted eyes, a bit like Urza's 
gemstone eyes, though large enough that she couldn't have 
covered one with splayed fingers. The design needed 
improvement. The priest raised a nozzle-tipped arm and 
exterminated a flying bird an instant after it was fully 
erupted, but ignored Xantcha who crouched unmoving some 
three paces from the ambulator's edge.
    The nozzle arm was also new to Xantcha. She thought 
she'd seen a thin black thread reach out to the bird, but 
the attack had been so quick that she couldn't be sure of 
anything except the bird had disappeared in a burst of red 
light. Nothing, not even a feather, had fallen from the 
sky.
    No doubt Xantcha would find out exactly what it could 
do, and since the priest's arms were mismatched, what 
surprises lurked on its right side. Urza's armor had never 
failed.
    "Over here, meatling!" Few epithets would get a 
priest's attention quicker than calling it a newt. Xantcha 
stood up, brandishing her broken sword.
    The nozzle weapon sent something very sharp, very hot 
at the hollow of Xantcha's neck, and she felt as though it 
had come out through her spine. Urza's armor flashed a 
radiant cobalt blue, astonishing both her and the priest.
    "What is your place?" the priest demanded through 
mouth-parts hidden within its triangle head. It was not an 
avenger, modeled after fleshly predators, it was, despite 
its weapons, a thinker, a planner. "Xantcha."
    The right arm came up and shot forth a segmented cable, 
the tip of which was a fast-spinning flower with razored 
petals. It struck Xantcha's face. She felt bones give, but 
the flower took greater damage. Steel petals clattered to 
the ground, and pulses of glistening oil spurted from the 
still-spinning hub. Xantcha struck quickly with the broken 
sword, enveloping the cable and yanked hard. It had two 
metal legs and a top-heavy torso. In the Phyrexia she 
remembered, such bipedal priests had a tendency to topple.
    And it nearly did, though nearly was worse than not at 
all. Xantcha had simply pulled it closer, and it lashed the 
severed cable of its right arm around her waist. It began 
using its metal arms as clubs. Xantcha could neither 
retreat nor make good use of her sword. Her right elbow got 
clobbered and broken within the armor. She managed to get 
the sword free of the cable and transferred to her left 
hand before her right went numb within the armor. Xantcha 
took the only stroke she had, a sideswipe at the priest's 
right eye.
    Two more of Urza's canisters rained down. One was 
concussive; the other screamed so loud Xantcha's ears hurt 
through the armor. Together, the canisters jarred something 
loose inside the priest. Glistening oil poured from the 
downward point of its triangle head. It struck one final 
time, another blow to her already mangled elbow-they truly 
had no imagination-before it expired.
    He'd saved her life.
    Ratepe, son of Mideah, had saved her life.
    The damn fool either hadn't heard her shout or, most 
likely, had ignored it.
    Xantcha writhed free of the cable. Numbness had spread 
up her right arm to her shoulder. She'd survive. Urza 
himself had said that a Phyrexian newt's ability to heal 
itself was nothing less than miraculous, but she wasn't 
looking forward to releasing the armor and wouldn't 
consider doing it until she'd dealt with the ambulator.
    She got down on her knees and cursed. New designs or 
no, the black pool in front of her was definitely the 
nether end of an ambulator, and unless she wanted to poke 
her head into Phyrexia to loosen the prime end, there was 
no way Xantcha could destroy it completely. But she could 
make it very dangerous to use, if she could get it rolled 
and find some way to break or reset the black lens. She had 
half the rim unanchored when yet another pair of canisters 
showered her with glass and fire.
    "Enough, already!"
    She moved on to the next anchor.
    Ratepe arrived moments later. "Xantcha!"
    "Stay away!" she warned harshly. The pain was bearable 
but numbness was making her groggy. She could have used 
help, but not from someone who was pure, mortal flesh. 
"It's not done. Not yet. I told you to run!"
    "Xan-"
    Xantcha realized she must look bad, broken bones 
bruising her face, her right arm, mangled and useless. 
"Don't worry about me.
    I'll be fine in a couple of days. Just. . . get away 
from here. More can come through, even now. Make yourself 
unnoticeable. I've to create an inconvenience."
    "I'll help-"
    "You'll hide."
    She popped another anchor. The pool rippled, black on 
black. Ratepe retreated, but not far. She didn't have the 
strength to argue with him.
    "There, by the priest, you'll see a little black glass-
circle thing. Don't touch it! Don't touch anything. But 
think about breaking that glass." Xantcha crawled to the 
next anchor.
    "Priest? Shratta?"
    "No." She pointed at the heap of metal that had been 
the Phyrexian and went back to work on the anchor. Another 
eight or ten, and she'd have it loose.
    "Merciful Avohir! Xantcha, what is it?"
    "Phyrexian. A priest. I don't know what kind, something 
new since I left. That's what we're fighting. Except, 
that's a priest and not a Phyrexian meant for fighting."
    "Not like you, then-"
    Xantcha looked up. He was bent over, reaching out. "I 
said, don't touch it!" He straightened. "And I'm not a 
fighter. I'm not anything, a newt, nothing started, nothing 
compleated. Just a newt."
    "The six-I killed the last one, myself, with those 
coins you left me." She hadn't heard the explosions. Well, 
there'd been other things on her mind. "They called this 
... a priest? They invited it here, to Efuan Pincar?"
    "Big trouble, just like you said. And don't kid 
yourself. Assume they've got more ambulators." She 
remembered the upright disk in the Moag temple. "Assume 
they've got worse. Assume that some of the sleepers are 
awake, that there are priests inside the palace, and that 
some of your own have been corrupted, starting with your 
king." Xantcha released another anchor. "Look at the glass, 
will you? My sword broke when I hit it."
    A moment or two of silence. She was down to her last 
three anchors when Ratepe said, "I've got an idea," and ran 
into the trees.
    He came back with the firepots and the rest of Urza's 
canisters. "We can put it in one of the pots with the 
bangers, put one pot on top of the other and let it rip."
    All the anchors were up and Xantcha had no better idea, 
except to send Ratepe to the far end of the orchard before 
she followed his suggestions.
    Afterward, she remembered flying through the air and 
landing in a tree.
 
                        CHAPTER 14
 
    It had happened before in the between-worlds: a 
sensation of falling that lasted until Xantcha opened her 
eyes and found herself looking at nothing familiar.
    "Ah, awake at last."
    The voice was not quite a man's voice, yet deeper than 
most female voices and quite melodious, though Xantcha 
suspected that an acid personality powered it. She could 
almost picture a Phyrexian with that voice, though this 
place wasn't Phyrexia. Not a whiff of glistening oil 
accompanied the voice, and the air was quiet. There was 
music, in the distance, music such as might be made by 
glass chimes or bells.
    Xantcha remembered the wind-crystal on another world.
    She realized she was not in a bedroom, not in a 
building of any sort. The wall to her left and the ceiling 
above were a shallow, wind-eroded cave. Elsewhere, the 
world was grass. Grass with a woman's voice?
    "Where am I? How did I get here? Urza? Where's Urza? We 
were together on the ice, fighting Phyrexians." She propped 
herself up on one elbow. "I have to find him." She was 
dizzy. Xantcha was rarely dizzy.
    "As you were!"
    By its tone, the voice was accustomed to obedience.
    Xantcha lay flat and returned to her first question. 
"Where am I?"
    "You are here. You are being cared for. There is 
nothing more you need to know."
    She'd been so many places, picked up so many languages. 
Xantcha had to lie very still, listening to her thoughts 
and memories, before she could be sure she did not know the 
language she was speaking. It was simply there in her mind, 
implanted rather than acquired by listening. Another reason 
to think of Phyrexia.
    Xantcha considered it unlucky to think of Phyrexia once 
before breakfast and here she'd thought of it three times. 
She realized she was very hungry.
    "If I'm being cared for, I'd like something to eat, if 
you please."
    Urza said manners were important among strangers, 
especially when one was at a stranger's mercy. Of course, 
he rarely bothered with such niceties. With his power, Urza 
was never at a stranger's mercy.
    Xantcha remembered the turtles, the Phyrexians they'd 
been fighting before-before what? She couldn't remember how 
the skirmish had ended, only a bright light and a sense 
that she'd been falling for a long time before she woke up 
here, wherever here was.
    "The air will sustain you," the voice said. "You do not 
need to fill yourself with death."
    Another thought of Phyrexia, where compleat Phyrexians 
neither ate nor breathed but were sustained by glistening 
oil.
    "I need food. I'll hunt it myself."
    "You'll do no such thing!"
    Xantcha pushed herself into a sitting position and got 
her first look at the voice: a tall woman, thin through the 
body, even thinner through the face. Her eyes were gray, 
her hair was pale gold, and her lips were a tight, 
disapproving line beneath a large, but narrow nose. She 
seemed young, at least to Xantcha. It seemed, as well, that 
she had never smiled or laughed.
    "Who are you?" Xantcha asked. Though, what are you? was 
the question foremost in her mind.
    The multiverse might well contain an infinite number of 
worlds, but it had no more than two-score of sentient 
types, if Xantcha followed Urza's example and disregarded 
those types that, though clearly sentient, were also 
completely feral and without the hope of civilization. Or 
nearly four-score, if she followed her own inclination to 
regard men and women of every type as distinct species.
    Urza's type was the most common and with the arrogance 
of the clear majority. He called himself simply a man where 
others were elf-men, or dwarf-men, or gremlin-men. His 
wife, Kayla Bin-Kroog had been a woman, a very beautiful 
woman. When Xantcha had asked Urza for a single word that 
united men and women, as elves united elf-man and elf-
woman, he'd answered mankind, which seemed to her a better 
way of uniting all the men, common and rare rather than 
common men with their wives and daughters.
    When she'd demanded a better word, Urza had snarled and 
'walked away. Xantcha wondered what he'd make of the woman 
standing in front of her. Wonder sparked a hope he was 
still alive, and that she'd find him here, but another 
thought crowded Urza from Xantcha's mind. She and the 
stranger were both dressed in long white gowns.
    Where had her clothes gone? Her sword and knives? The 
shoulder sack filled with stew and treasure? Except for the 
gown, Xantcha was naked. She wondered if the stern-faced 
woman was naked, if she was really a woman after all. Her 
voice was quite deep, and her breasts were a far cry from 
generous.
    That was very nearly a fifth Phyrexian thought before 
breakfast, and since the stranger had given no indication 
that she was going to answer any of her questions, Xantcha 
got her feet under her and pushed herself upright. Another 
bout of dizziness left her grateful for the nearby rock.
    She rested with her back against the stone and took a 
measure of the world where she'd awakened. It was a golden 
place of rolling hills and ripened grasses, all caught in 
the afterglow of a brilliant sunset, with clear air and 
layers upon layers of clouds overhead. It was difficult, 
though, to discern where west lay. Urza had explained it to 
her in the earliest days. Wherever men dwelt, the sun set 
in the west and rose in the east. In all quarters the 
horizon was marked with dazzling amber peaks that might 
have been mountains or might have been clouds. It was 
achingly beautiful and almost as strange.
    On impulse, Xantcha looked for her shadow and found it 
huddled close by her feet, where she'd expect to find it at 
high noon. Curiosity became suspicion that got the better 
of her manners, "Does this world mark time by the sun?" she 
asked with a scowl, a sixth Phyrexian thought. "Or do you 
live in immortal sunset?"
    The stranger drew back and seemed, somehow, taller. "We 
think of it as sunrise."
    "Does the sun ever get risen ?"
    "Our Lady has created all that you can see, each cloud, 
each breeze, each stone, each tree and blade of grass. She 
has created them all at their moment of greatest beauty. 
There is peace here and no need for change."
    Xantcha let out a long, disbelieving breath. "Waste 
not, want not."
    "Exactly," the stranger replied, though Xantcha had not 
intended the Phyrexian maxim as a compliment.
    "Are we alone?"
    "No."
    "Where are the others?"
    "Not here."
    Xantcha's dizziness had passed. If there were others 
elsewhere, she was ready to look for them. She took a deep 
breath, opened her mouth, and yawned.
    "Not here!" the woman repeated, an emphatic command 
this time.
    Listen and obey the vat-priests had told Xantcha in the 
beginning, and despite the passage of time, she still found 
it difficult to disobey, especially when the cyst felt 
heavy in her gut, heavy and oddly unreliable. She swallowed 
the lump that was part unemerged sphere and part rising 
panic.
    "How did I get here?"
    "I don't know."
    "How long have I been here."
    "Since you arrived."
    "Where am I?"
    "Where you are."
    Panic surged again, and this time Xantcha couldn't 
fight it down. "What manner of world is this?" she shouted. 
"The sun doesn't rise or set. You give me answers that 
aren't answers. Is this Phyrexia? Is that it? Have I been 
brought back to Phyrexia?"
    The stranger blinked but said nothing.
    "Can I leave? Is Urza here? Can I find Urza?"
    More silence. Xantcha wanted to run. She was lucky she 
could walk. Her legs had become the legs of a lethargic 
stranger. Every step required concentration, calculation, 
and blind faith as she transferred weight from one foot to 
the other. After ten strides, Xantcha was panting and 
needed to rest. She didn't dare sit down for fear she 
wouldn't have the strength to stand again, so she bent from 
the hips and kept her balance by bracing clammy, shaking 
hands on her gown-covered knees.
    The stranger wasn't following her. Xantcha pulled 
herself erect and started walking again. She took nearly 
twenty cautious steps before her strength gave out. The 
stranger hadn't moved at all.
    Urza! Xantcha thought his name with the same precision 
she used with her mnemonics when she yawned. Urza had never 
admitted that he was open to her thoughts, but he'd never 
denied it, either. Urza, I'm in a strange place. Nothing is 
all wrong, but it's not right, either and I'm not myself. 
If you're nearby-?
    She stopped short of begging or pleading. If he had 
survived their last battle . . . and Xantcha was unwilling 
to believe that she had outlived Urza the Artificer, and 
she certainly couldn't have gotten here on her own. If Urza 
weren't busy with problems of his own, then he would come. 
Until then, she would walk.
    The heaviness and lethargy didn't go away as the 
dizziness had, but Xantcha became accustomed to them, as 
she would have accustomed herself to the rise and fall of a 
boat's deck. Xantcha might not know where she was or where 
she was going, but when she looked over her shoulder, she'd 
left a clean line through the ripe grass.
    The stranger had told at least one truth. The air was 
enough. Xantcha forgot her hunger and never became thirsty, 
even though, she worked up a considerable sweat forcing 
herself across the hills. Up and down and up again. 
Eventually Xantcha lost sight of the stranger and the rock 
where she'd awakened. There were other rocks along her 
chosen path, all dun-colored and eroded into curves that 
were the same, yet also unique.
    Once, and once only, Xantcha saw a bush and veered off 
her straight path to examine it. The bush was shoulder-high 
and sprawling. Its leaves were tiny but intensely green-the 
first green she'd found on this sunset-colored world. Pale 
berries clustered on inner branches. Xantcha considered 
picking a handful, then noticed the thorns, too, a lot of 
them and each as long as her thumb.
    The stranger had been appalled when she'd mentioned 
hunting for her food, as if nothing here needed anything 
more than air to survive. But if that were true, then why 
the thorns, and why were there berries only on the inner 
branches? The stranger had spoken of a Lady and of creation 
and perfection. Someone somewhere was telling lies.
    Xantcha left the berries alone. She rejoined her trail 
through the grass. If there were predators, they'd have no 
trouble finding her. The golden grass was ripe and brittle. 
She'd left a wake of broken stalks and wished she still had 
her sword or at least a knife. Aside from the stranger, 
Xantcha had seen nothing living that wasn't also rooted in 
the ground, no birds or animals, not even insects. A place 
that had berries should have insects.
    Even Phyrexia had insects.
    Xantcha walked until her body told her it was time to 
sleep. How long she'd walked or how far were unanswerable 
questions. She made herself a grass mattress beside another 
rock, because habit said a rock provided more shelter than 
open grass. If the stranger could be believed, night never 
fell, the air wouldn't turn cold, and there was no reason 
not to sleep soundly, but Xantcha didn't trust the 
stranger. She couldn't keep her eyes closed long enough for 
the grass beneath her to make impressions in her skin and 
after a handful of failed naps, she started walking again.
    If walking and fitful napping were a day, then Xantcha 
walked for three days before she came upon a familiar 
stranger waiting beside a weathered rock. Even remembering 
that she, herself, had been one of several thousand 
identical newts, Xantcha was sure it was the same stranger. 
The rock was the same, and a wake of broken grass began 
nearby.
    The stranger had moved. She was sitting rather than 
standing, and she was aware that Xantcha had returned, 
following her closely with her gray eyes, but she didn't 
speak. Silence reigned until Xantcha couldn't bear it.
    "You said there were others. Where? How can I find 
them?" "You can't."
    "Why not? How big is this world? What happened to me? 
Did I trick myself into walking in a circle? Answer me! 
Answer my questions! Is this some sort of punishment?" 
Manners be damned, Xantcha threatened the seated woman with 
her fists. "Is this Phyrexia? Are you some new kind of 
priest?"
    The woman's expression froze between shock and disdain. 
She blinked, but her gray eyes didn't become flashing 
jewels as Urza's would have done. Nor did she raise any 
other defense, yet Xantcha backed away, lowered her arms, 
and unclenched her hands.
    "So, you can control yourself. Can you learn? Can you 
sit and wait?"
    Xantcha had learned harder lessons than sitting 
opposite an enigmatic stranger, though few that seemed more 
useless. Other than the slowly shifting cloud layers, the 
occasionally rippling grass and the gray-eyed woman, there 
was nothing to look at, nothing to occupy Xantcha's 
thoughts. And if the goal were self-reflection . . .
    "Urza says that I have no imagination," Xantcha 
explained when her legs had begun to twitch so badly she'd 
had to get up and walk around the rock a few times. "My 
mind is empty. I can't see myself without a mirror. It's 
because I'm Phyrexian." "Lies," the stranger said without 
looking up.
    "Lies!" Xantcha retorted, ready for an argument, ready 
for anything that would cut the boredom. "You're a fine one 
to complain about lies!"
    But the stranger didn't take Xantcha's bait, and 
Xantcha returned to her chosen place. Days were longer 
beside the rock. Sitting was less strenuous than walking 
and despite her suspicions, Xantcha slept soundly with the 
stranger nearby. They had a conversational breakthrough on 
the fourth day of unrelenting boredom when a line of black 
dots appeared beneath the lowest cloud layer.
    "The others?" Xantcha asked. She would have soared off 
in the sphere days earlier and over her companion's 
objections, if the cyst weren't still churning and awkward 
in her gut.
    The stranger stood up, a first since Xantcha had 
returned from her walk. Gray eyes rapt on the moving 
specks, she walked into the unbroken grass. She reached out 
toward them with both arms stretched to the fingertips. But 
the specks moved on, her arms fell, and she returned to 
Xantcha, all sagging shoulders and weariness.
    In this world without night, it finally dawned on 
Xantcha that she might have leapt to the wrong conclusions. 
"How long have you been here?" A friend's concern rather 
than a prisoner's accusation.
    "I came with you."
    Still a circular answer, but the tone had been less 
aloof. Xantcha persisted. "How long ago was that? How much 
time has passed since we've both been here?"
    "Time is. Time cannot be cut and measured."
    "As long as we've been sitting here, was I lying under 
the rock longer than that, or not as long?"
    The stranger's brow furrowed. She looked at her hands. 
"Longer. Yes, much longer."
    "Longer than you expected?"
    "Very much longer."
    "The air sustains us, but otherwise we've been 
forgotten?"
    More furrowed brows, more silence, but the language 
implanted in her mind had words for time and forgetting. 
Meaning came before words. The stranger had to understand 
the question.
    "Why are we both here, beside this rock and forgotten? 
What happened?"
    "The angels found you and another-"
    "Urza? I was with Urza?"
    "With another not like you. His eyes see everything."
    Xantcha slouched back against the rock. Raw fear 
drained down her spine. "Urza." She'd been found with Urza. 
Everything would be resolved; it was only a matter of time. 
"What happened to Urza?"
    "The angels brought you both to the Lady's palace. The 
Lady held onto Urza. But you, you are not like Urza. She 
said she could do nothing with you, and you would die. The 
Lady does not look upon death."
    "I was stuck out here to die, and you were put here to 
watch me until I did. But I didn't, and so we're both stuck 
here. Is that it?"
    "We will wait."
    "For what?"
    "The palace."
    Xantcha pressed her hands over her mouth, lest her 
temper escape. A newt, she told herself. The gray-eyed 
stranger was a newt. She listened, she obeyed, she had no 
imagination and didn't know how to leap from one thought to 
another. Xantcha herself had been like that until Gix had 
come to the First Sphere, probing her mind, making her 
defend herself, changing her forever. Xantcha had no 
intention of invading the stranger's privacy. She didn't 
have the ability, even if she'd had the intention. All she 
wanted was the answers that would reunite her with Urza.
    And if her questions changed the stranger, did that 
make Xantcha herself another Gix? No, she decided and 
lowered her hands. She would not have poured acid down the 
fumarole to Gix's grave if he'd done nothing more than 
awaken her self-awareness.
    "What if we didn't wait," Xantcha asked with all the 
enthusiasm of a conspirator in pursuit of a partner. "What 
if we went to the palace ourselves."
    "We can't."
    "Why not? Urza gave me a gift once. If you could tell 
me where the palace is, it could take us both there."
    "No. Impossible. We shouldn't be speaking of this. I 
shouldn't be speaking with you at all. The Lady herself 
could do nothing with you. Enough. We will wait... in 
perfect silence."
    The stranger bowed her head and folded her hands in her 
lap. Her lips moved rapidly as she recited something-
Xantcha guessed a prayer-to herself. No matter. The wall 
had been breached. Xantcha was a conspirator in search of a 
partner, and she had nothing else to do but plan her next 
attack.
    Within two days she had the stranger's name, Sosinna, 
and the certainty that Sosinna considered herself a woman. 
Two days more and she had the name of the Lady, Serra. 
After that, it was quite easy to keep Sosinna talking, 
although the sad truth was that Sosinna knew no more about 
Serra's world than Xantcha had known about Phyrexia when 
Urza first rescued her.
    Sosinna was a Sister of Serra, one of many woman who 
served that lady in her palace. If Xantcha had not walked 
for three days straight and found herself back where she'd 
started, she would have laughed aloud when Sosinna 
described Serra's palace as a wondrous island floating 
forever among the golden clouds. But it did seem true that 
Serra's world had no land, not as other worlds where men 
and women dwelt had great masses of rocks rising from their 
oceans. Xantcha had already learned that she couldn't walk 
to the edge of the floating island where she and Sosinna 
sat in exile, but once she had the thought of a floating 
island in her mind, Xantcha could see that many of the 
darker clouds around them weren't clouds at all but 
miniature worlds of grass and stone.
    The others Sosinna had mentioned were angels, winged 
folk who did Serra's bidding away from the palace. Angels 
had found Urza and Xantcha, though Sosinna didn't know 
where, and angels had brought Xantcha and Sosinna to their 
exile island because the Sisters of Serra were unable to 
leave the floating palace on their own. The angels' wings 
weren't like Urza's cyst-the idea of having an artifact 
reside permanently in her stomach appalled Sosinna so much 
that she stopped talking for three full days. Nor were the 
wings added in some floating-island equivalent of the Fane 
of Flesh. That notion roused Sosinna's anger.
    "Angels," she informed Xantcha emphatically, "are born. 
Here we are all born. The Lady reveres life. She would not 
ever countenance that-that-Fane. Filth. Waste. Death! No 
wonder-no wonder that the Lady said you could not be 
helped! I will have nothing more to do with you. Nothing at 
all!"
    Sosinna couldn't keep her vow. The woman who'd sat 
silently for days on end, could not resist telling Xantcha 
in great detail about the perfect way in which the Lady 
raised her realm's children.
    Births, it seemed, were rare. Incipient parents dwelt 
in the palace under the Lady's immediate care, and their 
precious children, once they were born and weaned, went to 
the nursery where the Lady personally undertook their 
education. Sosinna's voice thickened with nostalgia as she 
described the tranquil cloister where she'd learned the 
arts of meditation and service. Privately, Xantcha thought 
Lady Serra's nursery sounded as grim as the Fane of Flesh, 
but she kept those thoughts to herself, smiling politely, 
even wistfully, at each new revelation.
    On the twentieth day of forced smiles, Xantcha's 
conspiratorial campaign achieved its greatest victory when 
Sosinna confessed that she was in love, perfectly and 
eternally, with one of her nursery peers: an angel.
    "Is that permitted?" Xantcha interrupted before she had 
the wit to censor herself. The notion of love fascinated 
her, and spending most of her life in Urza's shadow or 
hiding her unformed flesh beneath a young man's clothes, 
she'd had very little opportunity to learn love's secrets. 
"You don't have wings."
    Xantcha's curiosity was ill-timed and rude. It 
jeopardized everything she'd gained through long days of 
patient questions, but it was sincere. On worlds where 
mankind lived side by side with elves or dwarves or any 
other sentients, love, with all its complications was 
rarely encouraged, more frequently forbidden. She hardly 
expected love between the Sisters of Serra and winged 
angels to flourish in a place where the mere appearance of 
the sun would have spoilt the perfection of the sunrise.
    But Sosinna surprised Xantcha with a furious blush that 
stretched from the collar of her white gown into her pale 
gold hair.
    "Wings," Sosinna exclaimed, "have nothing to do with 
it!" A lie, if ever Xantcha had heard one. "We are all bom 
the same, raised the same. Our parentage is not important 
to Lady Serra. We are all equal in her service. She 
encourages us to cherish each other openly and to follow 
our hearts, not our eyes, when we declare our one true 
love."
    More lies, though Sosinna's passion was real. 
"Kenidiern is a paragon," she confided in a whisper. "No 
one serves the Lady with more bravery and vigor. He has 
examined every aspect of his being and cast out all trace 
of imperfection. There is not one mote of him that isn't 
pure and devoted to duty. He stands above all the other 
angels, and no one would fault him if he were proud, but he 
isn't. Kenidiern has embraced humility. There isn't a woman 
alive who wouldn't exchange tokens with him, but he has 
given his to me."
    Sosinna removed her veil and, sweeping her hair aside, 
revealed a tiny golden earring in the lobe of her left ear.
    "Beautiful. An honor above all others," Xantcha agreed, 
trying to imitate Sosinna's lofty tone while she wracked 
her mind for a way to turn this latest revelation toward a 
reunion with Urza and escape from Serra' s too-perfect 
realm. "It must be difficult for you to be apart from him. 
You can't know what he's doing, or where. If something had 
happened to him, you wouldn't know and, well, if he's given 
you his token, it's not likely that he'd have forgotten 
you, so you have to think that he's looking for you, if he 
can." Xantcha smiled a very Phyrexian smile. Urza would 
disapprove, although there was no reason for him to ever 
know. "Of course, sometimes, even paragons get distracted."
    Several long moments of nervous fiddling passed before 
Sosinna said, "We have our duties. We both serve the Lady. 
Everyone serves the Lady first and foremost." She sat up 
straight and looked very uncomfortable. "I have strayed 
from the path. We will speak of these things no more."
    But the damage had been done. Sosinna had lost the 
ability to stare endlessly at nothing. She watched the 
clouds. Xantcha supposed Sosinna was looking for angels and 
hoped, for her own selfish reasons, that they appeared. In 
the end, though, it wasn't angels that got them moving.
    Once she'd learned that Serra's realm was composed of 
islands drifting in a cloudy sea, Xantcha had quickly 
realized that each island had its own rhythm and path. With 
a persistent ache in her stomach, Xantcha wasn't tempted to 
yawn out the sphere and become her own island, but she 
thought she could hop from one island to another if a more 
interesting one drifted near. She dismissed the possibility 
of a collision between two of the Lady's islands as an 
unimaginable imperfection, until the ground bucked beneath 
them.
    One moment Xantcha and Sosinna were laying flat, 
clinging to the rooted grass. The next, they were both 
thrown into the air while the land beneath shattered. For 
an instant they floated weightless; then the falling began. 
Without thinking or hesitating, Xantcha yawned and grabbed 
Sosinna's ankle. The cyst was slow to release its power, 
and the sphere, when it finally emerged, was midnight 
black.
 
                        CHAPTER 15
 
    Xantcha and Sosinna both screamed as the darkness 
sealed around them. Navigation was impossible, and they 
became one more tumbling object in the chaos raining down 
from the colliding islands. Sosinna called her lady's name, 
begging for deliverance. Xantcha hoped Serra could hear. 
The sphere wasn't like Urza's armor. The armor lasted until 
Xantcha willed it away, but once the sphere had risen, it 
collapsed as soon as it touched the ground. At least that 
was what had always happened. It might do something 
different this time when it had come out black.
    The jostling, which seemed to last forever, ended when 
they struck a decisive bottom. The sphere collapsed, as it 
always had, coating Xantcha in soot and leaving them in a 
shower of rocks. Xantcha was stunned when a stone struck 
her head. But mind-stars were all she saw through the 
sticky soot. Sosinna's hand closed over hers. Xantcha let 
herself be guided to a place where the air was quiet.
    "So, what next?" Xantcha asked when she'd wiped away 
enough soot to open her eyes.
    There wasn't much to see. The air was dusty, and the 
overhead island-the island from which they'd fallen and 
that continued to rain chunks of itself onto the island 
where they were standing- remained close enough to keep 
them in twilight darkness. She feared another collision.
    "We can't stay here," she added, in case Sosinna had 
missed the obvious.
    They were both nursing bruises. Xantcha's hand came 
away bloody when she touched the throbbing spot where the 
rock had hit her skull. The left sleeve of Sosinna's gown 
was torn to rags, and she was dripping soot-streaked blood 
from a gash on her forearm. Xantcha never worried her own 
cuts. She healed quick, and the infections or illnesses 
that plagued born-folk weren't interested in newt-flesh. 
She worried about Sosinna, instead.
    Although Sosinna had gotten them to safety beyond the 
rock fall, she was dazed and unresponsive. She held her 
bleeding arm in front of her and stared at it with glassy 
eyes. The folk of Serra's realm were born, or so Sosinna 
had claimed. Despite the strangeness of the floating-island 
realm and the way Serra's air sustained them, Sosinna might 
be as fragile as the born-folk usually were. The soot alone 
might kill her. Blood poisoning wasn't an easy death or a 
quick one. But unless she had hidden injuries, Sosinna's 
problem had to be shock and fear.
    "Waste not, want not, you're not near dead yet. Pull 
yourself-"
    "It was black," Sosinna interrupted.
    "I noticed," Xantcha said with a shrug. "It's always 
been clear before. But it kept us alive, and we'll use it 
again."
    Sosinna wrenched free. "No! You don't understand. It 
was black! Nothing here is black. The Lady doesn't permit 
it." She began to weep. "I told you, you couldn't call on 
black mana here."
    "Black mana? I'm no sorcerer, Sosinna. I've never 
called to the land in my life." But the cyst had felt wrong 
since she'd awakened, worse since she'd used it, and the 
sphere had been black.
    "You shattered the land. Shattered it!"
    Xantcha didn't demand gratitude, but she wouldn't stand 
for abuse. "I didn't shatter anything. Two islands 
collided, and I kept us alive the only way I knew how. 
Would you rather I'd left you to be crushed by the rocks?"
    "Yes! Yes, they'll come for you because of what you've 
done, and they'll come for me because what you've done is 
all over me."
    "If I'd known that, I'd've done it sooner," Xantcha 
lied.
    Xantcha wasn't in pain. If anything, she was numb. For 
the first time in centuries, she wasn't aware of Urza's 
cyst. Her hand felt cloth when she rubbed below her waist, 
but the rest of her couldn't feel her hand. The numbness 
wasn't spreading. The part of her mind that knew when she 
was healthy said that she was numb because she was empty. 
She didn't know what would happen if she called on the cyst 
while her gut was numb and didn't want to find out unless 
she had to.
    "How long before your Lady gets here?"
    "The Lady won't come. She takes no part in death, even 
when she knows it must be done. The archangels will come." 
Sosinna looked up at the still-crumbling underside of their 
original floating island. "Soon."
    Sosinna dried her tears, leaving fresh streaks of blood 
and soot on her face. Then she did what Serra's folk seemed 
to do best: she sat down, folded her hands in her lap, and 
settled in to wait. The gash on her arm continued to bleed. 
Maybe Sosinna didn't feel pain, or maybe she hoped she'd 
bleed to death before the dreaded archangels arrived.
    If her own life hadn't hung in the balance, Xantcha 
would have laughed at the absurdity. She grabbed Sosinna 
below the shoulders and hauled the taller woman to her 
feet.
    "You want to live, Sosinna. You got us both away from 
the falling rocks and dirt-" She shook the other woman, 
hoping for reaction. "You want to live. You want to see 
Kenidiern again."
    A blink. A frown. Nothing.
    "This is not perfection!" Xantcha shouted and then let 
Sosinna go.
    The taller woman balanced on her own feet a moment, 
then calmly sat down again. Xantcha walked away in disgust. 
She'd gone about ten paces before the light of 
understanding brightened in her mind.
    "You knew!" Xantcha shouted as she ran back. "You've 
known from the beginning! You've been expecting these arch-
whatever-angels since I woke up ... since before I woke up. 
Your precious, perfect
    Lady sent me here to be killed and sent you as what? A 
witness? 'Come back to the floating palace when 
everything's taken care of.'? All this time, waiting for 
the archangels-"
    "I never wanted them to come!" Sosinna shouted back.
    It was the first time Xantcha had heard the other woman 
raise her voice-perhaps the first time Sosinna had raised 
it. She seemed aghast by her outburst.
    "Why not? Didn't you want to get back to the palace and 
Keni-diern?"
    Sosinna gasped and fumbled for words. "Don't you 
understand? I can't go back."
    "Because I saved your life with my black mana." Xantcha 
thought she understood, perfectly. "If only the archangels 
had been a little quicker. Is that what you've been doing 
while you sat all the time. Praying to the archangels: get 
here soon?"
    "I didn't want you to wake up because while you were 
asleep there was no chance you'd use your black powers, and 
nothing would draw the archangels to us. Once you were 
awake . . . You are . . . You are so difficult. I was 
afraid to tell you anything."
    "I'd be much less difficult," Xantcha said with 
exaggerated politeness, "if I knew the truth." She sat down 
opposite Sosinna. "The perfect truth."
    "Kenidiern-"
    Xantcha rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised that 
he is at the heart of the truth?"
    "You are very difficult. It is the black mana in you. 
It rules you. The Lady said so."
    Xantcha wondered what the Lady had said about Urza, but 
that would have been a truly difficult question. "I know 
nothing about black mana, but I won't argue with your 
Lady's judgment. Go on ... please . . . before we run out 
of time."
    "How can you run out of time?"
    Xantcha shrugged. "Just talk."
    "The Lady smiled on Kenidiern and I. She has never 
encouraged the divisions between the sisterhood and the 
angels. We had her blessing to come to the palace, but 
before we could be together he was sent away, and I was 
chosen to accompany you. I would not have objected," 
Sosinna continued quickly and emphatically. "I serve Lady 
Serra proudly, willingly. We all know how she sacrifices 
herself to maintain the realm. It would be the worst sort 
of pride and arrogance to question her decisions.... But I 
could not, cannot believe this was her decision."
    "To send me away to die or to send you away to die with 
me?"
    Sosinna had the decency to look uncomfortable. "You are 
difficult, and you are devious. You imagine dark corners 
and then you make them real."
    That was a criticism Xantcha had never heard from 
Urza's lips.
    "You would never do among the sisters or the angels, 
but if I were to speak to the Lady, I would tell her that 
except for your black mana you would make a most excellent 
archangel, and I think she would agree. I was-am-young 
among the sisters, but I have-had-the Lady's confidence. I 
know she would not have sent me away without seeing me or 
telling me why."
    "Then why hasn't she come looking for you? Wouldn't she 
notice you were missing, you and Kenidiern, both?"
    Sosinna shivered. "You ask such questions, Xantcha! I 
would never think to ask such questions myself." She paused 
and Xantcha raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Until I met 
you. Now, I ask myself such questions, and I do not like my 
own answers! I ask myself if the Lady has been deceived by 
those who were displeased that Kenidiern had given me his 
token, and no matter how hard I try to purge my thoughts, I 
cannot convince myself that she hasn't."
    "Or maybe your Lady's not perfect?"
    Sosinna's thin-lipped mouth opened, closed, and opened 
again. "I don't know if she never looked for me or if she 
could not find me but in either case, yes, there would be 
imperfection. So you see I cannot go back to the palace, 
not with these thoughts in my heart. Kenidiern is lost. You 
mock me, Xantcha, do not bother to lie about it, but 
Kenidiern is a paragon. He would have looked for me and 
since he hasn't-"
    "Hasn't found you, but maybe he is looking. How many of 
these floating islands are there? A thousand? Ten thousand? 
You shouldn't give up. He might be just one rock away. 
Think of the look on his face when he finds you here dead 
because you stopped trying to stay alive."
    "Difficult."
    "But right."
    "Half right." A faint smile cracked the dirt on 
Sosinna's face, then vanished. "We couldn't go back to the 
palace."
    "Seems to me that's exactly the place we should be 
going."
    "We wouldn't be welcomed."
    "Waste not, want not, Sosinna, your precious Lady is 
being lied to, and you'd roll over and die without your 
lover because your enemies won't welcome you."
    "Not enemies."
    "Enemies. Anyone who wants you dead, Sosinna, is an 
enemy, yours and your Lady's. If you're determined to die, 
let's at least try to find this floating palace where your 
Lady is surrounded by silent enemies. Urza will support 
you."
    That was a promise Xantcha didn't know if she'd be able 
to keep, but it had to be made. Anything that would get 
Sosinna thinking had to be done, because even if the 
archangels didn't show up, the islands were likely to 
collide again. The upper island had taken the worst damage 
in the first collision and might again in the second, but 
anything on the surface of the lower island was going to 
get squashed like a bug.
    "Difficult," Sosinna repeated.
    Xantcha stood up and offered her hand. "But right."
    "I don't know where the palace is. Only the angels 
know."
    "Didn't Kenidiern ever tell you how he flew in and 
out?"
    "We never talked about such things."
    Xantcha almost asked what did they talk about, but 
Sosinna might have answered, and she didn't truly want to 
know. "Come on, let's at least start walking. We've got to 
walk ourselves clear of what's overhead. Maybe when we get 
to an edge we'll get lucky and see this wondrous palace." 
"We can't." "Can't what?"
    "We can't walk to the edge of an island. I don't think 
we can walk out from under the one overhead. I tried, 
Xantcha, before you woke up. I tried to abandon you. I knew 
when you walked away that you'd have to come back."
    "No apologies. Pd've done the same," Xantcha said and 
offered her hand again. "Come on. I've lived with worlds 
over my head, but not this close. Makes me nervous."
    Sosinna reached, and winced as the gash on her arm 
began bleeding again. It was ugly now and would only get 
worse if they didn't find water soon. Xantcha hadn't seen 
free-running water since she'd first opened her eyes in 
Serra's realm, but now that Sosinna was moving again, she 
didn't seem worried about her wounds, so Xantcha said 
nothing either.
    Xantcha kept an eye on the island overhead to measure 
their progress. The lethargy that had slowed her on her 
previous walk was worse. They weren't covering ground the 
way she would have liked. Even so, they were getting 
nowhere relative to the convoluted underside above them. 
Sosinna looked at her every time she looked up, a look that 
expected concessions and defeat, but Xantcha kept walking.
    Sosinna's remarks about black mana had confirmed 
Xantcha's suspicion that Serra's floating-island realm was 
a magical place, as unnatural in its way as Phyrexia. The 
forces that made Phyrexia a world of concentric spheres 
were as inexplicable as the ones that shaped Serra's realm 
into thousands of floating islands . . . and, perhaps, not 
all that different from each other. She'd have questions 
for Urza when they met again. If they met again. If she and 
Sosinna could walk to a place where the opening between the 
collided islands was large enough that she'd risk casting 
them adrift in the sphere.
    The thought of waking up the cyst brought an end to gut 
numbness. Xantcha dropped to one knee.
    "The archangels will find us," Sosinna said, not the 
words Xantcha wanted to hear at that moment. "Every time 
you call on black mana, it brings them closer."
    "I didn't call on black mana," Xantcha insisted.
    Xantcha used a mnemonic to awaken Urza's artifact. She 
didn't know how the cyst made the sphere or armor. Urza 
knew mana-based sorcery; the necessary insights had come 
with his eyes. He said the Thran hadn't used mana so he 
wouldn't either, but the Thran had made Urza's eyes. 
Sosinna thought Xantcha imagined dark corners. Xantcha 
didn't need imagination so long as she had Urza.
    The pain had faded, and numbness returned. Xantcha's 
legs were leaden when she stood. She could barely lift her 
feet when she tried to walk. "There's got to be another 
way."
    "We wait until the archangels find us. There is no 
other way."
    "Is your lady sensitive to black mana, or just the 
archangels?"
    "Black mana has no place here. It hurts. We can all 
feel it, the Lady most of all. She is aware of the whole 
realm as you are aware of your body. The archangels patrol 
the islands looking for black mana and other evil miasmas. 
They eliminate evil before it can affect the Lady, but when 
they found you and the other-Urza- together, they called 
Lady Serra for a judgment. You've already been judged. When 
the archangels find us, they won't call Lady Serra again. 
They won't risk her health. None of us would risk it. If 
the Lady sickened, we would all die."
    Another unfortunate choice of words, given the state of 
Xantcha's gut, but she had an idea. "I'm going to get 
everyone's attention, the archangels and, with any luck, 
your Lady herself."
    Xantcha yawned and thought the mnemonic for her armor. 
At first there was nothing, and she thought she'd lost the 
cyst altogether. Then the pain began and she felt something 
acid rising through her throat. Sosinna screamed, but by 
then Xantcha couldn't have stopped the process if she'd 
wanted to. The armor burned as it flowed over her skin. It 
spared her eyes. When Xantcha looked down what she saw was 
blacker than the darkest night, as black and featureless as 
the walls of an unlit cave. She brought her hands together, 
saw them touch, and felt absolutely nothing.
    "You got the archangels, that's all." Sosinna pointed 
through the narrow opening between the islands. "We're 
doomed."
    Sosinna stood no more than two arm's lengths away, but 
with the black armor covering Xantcha's ears, she sounded 
distant and under water. Xantcha looked in the indicated 
direction. A dazzling white diamond had appeared in the 
ribbon of golden light between the two islands. A moment's 
observation revealed that it was growing, moving toward 
them at considerable speed. From the air, then, the 
floating islands had edges. It was only from the ground 
that the horizon never became an edge.
    As the diamond grew larger, it became apparent that it 
had five parts: four smaller lights, one each in the narrow 
and oblique points, and a much larger light in the center.
    "The Aegis," Sosinna said.
    The Aegis was also diamond shaped and too bright to 
look at directly. Xantcha held her black-armored hand in 
front of her eyes and squinted through the pinhole gaps 
between her fingers. She saw writhing plumes of yellow fire 
emerging from a hole that reminded her of a portal, a 
portal to the sun. Moving her hand slightly she observed 
the smaller lights, the archangels themselves: radiant, 
elongated creatures with dazzling wings that didn't move 
and smooth, featureless faces. They resembled Sosinna the 
same way many compleat Phyrexians resembled newts. Not an 
encouraging thought.
    Xantcha didn't think Urza's armor, in its present 
condition, would be proof against the Aegis. She tried to 
say good-bye to Sosinna and discovered the armor had taken 
away her voice.
    Wind preceded the archangels. It shook boulders loose 
from the overhead island and lifted the island itself out 
of the way. One loosened boulder struck the ground so near 
to Xantcha's feet that she felt the ground shudder. The 
wind died when the archangels brought the Aegis to a 
hovering halt. As good warriors anywhere, the archangels 
tested their weapon before they put it to use. A beam of 
light as hot as a Phyrexian furnace and many times as 
bright seared the land directly below the Aegis. Then the 
beam began to move toward Xantcha and Sosinna.
    It made no difference whether Xantcha's eyes were open 
or shut. She was blind, and it felt as if the back of her 
skull were on fire. Xantcha had never believed in gods or 
souls, but facing the end of her life, Xantcha found she 
believed in curses. She'd roundly cursed Lady Serra's 
notion of perfection when she was struck down by a sideways 
wind.
    The wind was a word and the word was:
    Holt!
    A woman's voice. This time there could be no mistaking 
it, even through Xantcha's blackened armor. The great Lady 
of the realm reined in her archangels. The heat ebbed at 
once, but Xantcha remained blind. A more ordinary voice, a 
man's voice, shouted, "Sosinna!" Xantcha guessed that 
Kenidiern had found his beloved. She hoped Sosinna was 
still alive. She'd hoped, too, that Urza might be part of 
the rescue party, but no one called her name. Someone did 
lift her to her feet and into the air-at least Xantcha 
thought that she'd been lifted-she presumed she was being 
carried by an angel or archangel. Blind and numb as she 
was, it was impossible to be certain, and she was in no way 
tempted to release Urza's armor, assuming she could release 
it.
    The journey lasted long enough for Xantcha's vision to 
recover from its Aegis searing. She was moving through the 
air of Serra's realm, tucked under the arm of the right 
side archangel. Craning her neck as much as she dared, 
Xantcha caught a glimpse of a silver face with angles for 
nose, chin, and not so much as a slit for vision.
    A mask she thought, because the hand she could see at 
her waist was flesh with stretched sinew and pulsing 
arteries apparent beneath normal-hued skin. Xantcha could 
understand why the archangels might choose to cover their 
eyes. Even when it was shut down, the Aegis-one golden 
tether to which her archangel held in his, hers? its? other 
hand-was nothing Xantcha wanted to look at. Easily four 
times as high as her archangel, it reminded Xantcha of 
nothing so much as a piece of the sun, that Serra's realm 
did not otherwise possess.
    They left the Aegis behind, shining among the floating 
islands, once the great island that could only be Lady 
Serra's palace came into view.
    The palace was many times the size of any other island 
Xantcha had seen, and if she'd had to make a guess, she'd 
have said that it was the very center of the lady's 
creation.
    As all Phyrexia had formed in spheres around the 
Ineffable?
    But Xantcha had seen nothing like the palace in 
Phyrexia.
    Lady Serra's home leaped and soared in fantastic 
curves. Xantcha could think of no stone or brick that would 
glisten as the palace walls and ribs glistened in the 
Aegis's light. The underlying color was white, or possibly 
a golden gray. It was difficult to be certain. A myriad of 
rainbows moved constantly along every arch and into every 
corner. There was sound in all timbres to accompany the 
kaleidoscopic light, and not an echo of discord.
    The total experience, which could have been as 
overwhelming as the Aegis, was instead subtle and 
unspeakably beautiful. It was also pushing Xantcha and her 
archangel away. They were falling behind the others, 
including the fifth, unmasked angel carrying Sosinna. 
Xantcha would have preferred to keep her armor, black as it 
was, around her but she didn't want to be left alone 
either. Perhaps releasing the armor would be the most 
foolish thing she'd ever done, and the last, but she 
recited the mnemonic that made it melt away.
    Black dust streamed away from her. It dirtied the 
archangel's pure white robes, but he regained his right 
side place in the formation moments before they began a 
dizzying ascent to the rainbow lace ornament atop the 
palace's highest, most improbable arch.
    With nothing else to guide her eye, Xantcha had 
misjudged the scale of Serra's palace. She'd seen snow-
capped mountains that weren't as high as that single, 
soaring arch, and mighty temples that were smaller than the 
deceptively delicate edifice on whose jeweled porch the 
archangel landed.
    Her knees buckled when her feet touched the ground. She 
was numb the same way the palace was many-colored: awash in 
shifting waves of sensation. She kept her balance by 
keeping a close watch on her feet and the floor.
    "Follow me."
    Xantcha looked up quickly, a mistake under the 
circumstances. The archangels had already vanished, and 
Kenidiern, assuming the unmasked angel was Kenidiern, had 
no hands to spare. Xantcha broke her fall with her arms and 
stayed where she was, crouched on the glass-smooth floor.
    "I can send someone out for you," Kenidiern said in a 
tone that clearly conveyed the notion that he wouldn't 
recommend accepting the offer.
    He had a friendly, honest voice. Xantcha had never paid 
much attention to the handsomeness of men, but even she 
could see that Kenidiern was, as Sosinna had claimed, a 
very attractive paragon. She guessed he knew how to laugh, 
although his face was anxious at that moment. If Sosinna 
wasn't dead, she was clinging to life by a very delicate 
thread. The Aegis had burned the tall woman badly. Her 
flesh was seared and weeping beneath its crust of dirt.
    "Go," Xantcha told him. "I'll follow." She started to 
stand and abandoned the attempt. "I'll find a way."
 
                        CHAPTER 16
 
    Xantcha watched Kenidiern carry Sosinna through one of 
the many open doorways, and made sure she'd remembered 
which one before rising to her feet. Speed, she decided, 
mattered. The palace didn't like her and especially didn't 
like her when she moved quickly. Slow, gliding movements, 
as if she were crossing a frozen pond, offended it least. 
She made steady progress from the porch through the door 
and down a majestic corridor. There was no one to stop or 
question her, at least no one that Xantcha could see, which 
was not to say that she didn't believe her every step was 
scrutinized.
    The corridor ended in a chamber of breathtaking beauty. 
Unlike the rest of the palace, which seemed to be made from 
crystal and stone, this inner chamber was a place of life 
and growth. A maze of columns that might be trees, all 
graceful, but asymmetric and entrancing, hid the walls. 
Each tree or column was taller than her eye could measure.
    Xantcha lost her thoughts in the overhead tangle of 
green-gold branches, and the music, which was no longer the 
austere interplay of wind and light, but the more playful 
sounds of water and the bright-feathered birds she glimpsed 
among the high branches. She was startled witless when 
someone grabbed her from behind.
    "Xantcha! I did not know you still lived!"
    "Urza!"
    They'd never been much for backslapping embraces or 
other shows of affection, but any tradition needed its 
exception. And Urza was more animated, more alive, than 
Xantcha could remember him. His hands were warm and supple 
on her shoulders. They banished the lethargy that had 
plagued her since she'd first awakened and ended the 
numbness in her gut around the cyst.
    "Let me look at you!" he said, straightening his arms. 
His eyes glittered but only with reflections from Serra's 
palace. "A bit worn and dirty at the edges-" Urza winked as 
he tightened his fingers-"but still the same Xantcha."
    There was the faintest hint of a question in his 
statement. The sense that they were being watched hadn't 
faded with the numbness and lethargy. If anything, Xantcha 
was more aware than ever that she was in strange, perhaps 
hostile, surroundings.
    "As stubborn and suspicious as ever," Xantcha replied 
with a wink of her own.
    "We will talk, child. There is much to talk about. But, 
first you must meet our host." His arm urged her to walk 
beside him.
    "I did once, already." Xantcha slipped free and into 
one of the many, many other languages they both knew. If 
they were back to child, then she was going to be very 
stubborn and twice as suspicious. Lowering her voice, she 
added, "Serra sent me away to die, Urza, and sent one of 
her own to die with me. That's why you didn't know I was 
alive."
    "We will talk, child," Urza repeated in Serra's 
language. "This is not a good time to have a tantrum."
    She switched to another language. "I'm not a child, I'm 
not having a tantrum, and you know it!"
    Urza could put thoughts into Xantcha's head with only a 
little more discomfort than when he removed them. Yes, I 
know, and I will ask Serra why she misled me. I'm sure the 
answer will amuse us both. But for now you are safe with 
me, and it will be better all around if you behave 
graciously.
    Xantcha replied with a thought of her own. Graciously 
be damned! Serra didn't mislead you ... she lied!
    But Xantcha couldn't put a thought in Urza's mind, and 
her indignation went unshared. Urza walked away, and faced 
with a choice between keeping up with him or staying by 
herself, she caught up, as he'd almost certainly known she 
would.
    He said the chamber was known as Serra's Aviary and 
that she had seldom left it since creating her floating 
island realm.
    "Then you know this isn't a natural world?" Xantcha 
asked, still refusing to speak Serra's language.
    "Yes," Urza replied, ignoring her choice of language.
    "Does it remind you of my home as much as it reminds 
me?" She was careful not to speak the word Phyrexia.
    "There are no abominations here. The angels' wings are 
no more a part of them than your cyst is part of you. 
Serra's realm is slow and not without its flaws, but it is 
a living, natural place."
    "For you. I haven't eaten since I got here. That's not 
natural for me."
    "She has paid a price for her creation. Now, be 
gracious."
    Urza took Xantcha's hand as they wound around another 
organic column. A narrow spiral stairway opened in front of 
them. Xantcha looked up and up and up.
    "There's another way-?"
    "We are guests."
    Urza began climbing. Xantcha fell in behind him and 
into a kind of trance. The spiral was a tight one and each 
step a bit different in height and width than its 
neighbors. An odd sort of perfection that made each one 
unique, Xantcha thought, when she dared to think. Each step 
required concentration lest she lose her balance and tumble 
to the floor, which through the tangle of branches around 
them had come to look like twinkling stars on a warm, humid 
night. Urza surged ahead of her, but a hand awaited at the 
top of the stairway.
    Not Urza. Kenidiern. She recognized him by his stained 
robe.
    "She asked me to wait until you were here."
    Xantcha was breathing hard, but Urza's embrace had 
revitalized her. She didn't need anyone's help to follow 
the angel along a suspended walkway to a somewhat more 
intimate chamber than any she'd yet seen in the palace. It 
was only ten or twenty times the size that a room needed to 
be. Urza was there already, talking with a woman who could 
only be the lady, Serra, herself.
    Having seen angels, archangels and Sosinna, Xantcha had 
expected a tall, slender and remote woman, but Serra could 
have walked through any man-made village without attracting 
a second glance. Her face, though pleasant, was plain, and 
she had the sturdy silhouette of a woman who'd borne 
children and done many a hard day's work. She was also one 
of two light sources in the chamber, surrounded by a gently 
flickering white nimbus. If she'd created this realm, as 
Urza said, then, like him, she could change her appearance 
to suit her whims.
    The chamber's other light source was incomprehensible 
at first glance: a jumble of golden light and angular 
crystals bound together into two overlapping spheres. An 
artifact, certainly- Xantcha's dodger instincts had never 
deserted her-and beautiful, but its purpose, except as a 
source of light, eluded her.
    "Please." Kenidiern offered his hand again. "She is 
very weak, and she must be alive when the cocoon is closed 
or there is no reason to close it."
    Be gracious, Urza had said, so Xantcha let the angel 
have her hand, and before she could object he'd swept her 
up in both arms and carried her into the crystal lights. 
The wingless sisters of Serra were, perhaps, accustomed to 
being swooped about the palace, but Xantcha had rarely felt 
as helpless or as grateful to have her own feet under her 
once they'd reached a tiny enclosure where the spheres met.
    Cocoon, Kenidiern called it, and that was as good a 
word as any for the vaguely egg-shaped compartment in which 
Sosinna lay. Her stained gown was gone, replaced by a 
shining quilt, but the Aegis had seared her face and hair. 
Her eyes were terrible, frightened and frightening. Sosinna 
was blind. At least, Xantcha hoped Sosinna was blind.
    "Xantcha?" Sosinna's voice was a pain-wracked whisper. 
Her breathing was shallow and liquid.
    Xantcha had seen worse, done worse, though few things 
in her life had been more difficult than reaching out to 
touch the quilt-bandaged lump that was, or had been, 
Sosinna's hand.
    "I'm here."
    "We made it. You were right."
    "Difficult, but right."
    Sosinna tried to smile, pain defeated her. "We will 
name our child for you."
    Be gracious, that was easy. "I'm honored." Optimism 
came harder. "I'll show her, or him, how to be difficult."
    Another failed smile on Sosinna's swollen lips and an 
agonizing attempt to shake her head. "You will go outside 
where you belong. Kenidiern and I will remember you."
    With the sound of his name, Kenidiern came closer. His 
wings were soft, plumes rather than feathers. He rested his 
hand on Xantcha's shoulders. A shiver ran down Xantcha's 
spine, reminding her that, unlike Serra, the Ineffable had 
decreed that Phyrex-ians would not be born, and she was 
neither a man nor woman. Xantcha couldn't know if Kenidiern 
were a true paragon of anything useful, but she believed he 
had been looking for his beloved, and she envied Sosinna as 
she had never envied anyone before.
    "We must close the cocoon," Kenidiern whispered, urging 
her to retreat.
    Better call it a coffin. Some hurts were beyond even 
Urza's healing talents, and Sosinna's would be among them. 
It wasn't just her skin that had been charred and 
blistered. Sosinna had breathed fire and her insides were 
burnt as well. Xantcha took a backward step.
    "Good-bye . . . friend." Sosinna whispered.
    "Good-bye, friend."
    The upper sphere had begun to descend. Sosinna might be 
blind, but the cocoon wasn't silent. Surely she knew it was 
closing around her. She met her end without a whimper.
    "Until you rise again," Kenidiern added, a euphemism, 
if ever Xantcha had heard one, though Sosinna managed a 
trembling smile just before the spheres blocked Xantcha's 
view.
    There was a click, the golden light intensified, and, 
through her feet, Xantcha felt the whir of a distant 
engine. She thought of the Fane of Flesh, of the vats where 
discarded flesh was rendered and newts were decanted.
    "You didn't say good-bye," she said to Kenidiern.
    "Sosinna will rise again. The Lady does not offer her 
cocoon to everyone, but when she does, it never fails."
    He swept Xantcha up again before she could protest and 
brought her down to Urza and Serra, whose conversation died 
as they approached.
    "Sosinna is a special child to me," Serra said before 
Xantcha's feet were on the floor. "I didn't know what had 
become of her. I'm grateful that you showed us where she 
was, even though I'm not grateful for your methods!"
    The lady had Urza's voice, the voice of someone who 
treated everyone as children, someone whom mortals might 
mistake for a god. Xantcha had never been mortal, never 
believed in gods, and she'd used up all her graciousness.
    "Sosinna didn't believe in mistakes, she never lost 
faith in you. All the time we were together on that 
forsaken, floating island, she was hoping you or Kenidiern 
would rescue her before the archangels came to kill her. If 
that was you who called the Aegis off, then when it comes 
to rescuing your special children, you cut very close to 
the edge." Urza was appalled. His eyes glowed dark. 
Kenidiern stared at his sandaled feet. "Things here aren't 
as perfect as she believed they were."
    "You are Phyrexian, are you not?" Serra asked, a tone 
short of accusation.
    Urza's displeasure rumbled through the empty part of 
Xantcha's mind. The important part, the part she'd kept for 
herself since Gix had taught her how to build mental walls, 
remained unbowed. "You know I am."
    "Your leave, my lady," Kenidiern interrupted. "My love 
is in your hands now. There is no need for me to stay."
    Serra dipped her chin. Kenidiern was in the air before 
she raised it again. There were only three of them left in 
the branch-framed chamber: a man and a woman with the 
powers of gods, and a Phyrexian newt. Well, Xantcha was 
used to being overmatched.
    "There is no need for this, Xantcha." Urza attempted to 
impose peace. "I think Lady Serra will concede there have 
been certain imperfections in our condition here." He 
turned toward Serra.
    "Your arrival was so unexpected-" Serra began.
    Xantcha cut her off. "That reminds me. How did we get 
here? The last thing I remember was beating on the shell of 
a Phyrexian turtle."
    "I destroyed that abomination and all the others," Urza 
answered quickly. "But my enemies were lurking, watching 
from nether places, and before I could escape, they sent 
through reinforcements. It threatened to become the Fourth 
Sphere battle all over again, so I decided to retreat. I 
'walked away, grabbing you as I left. But you were badly 
injured, and my grasp was not firm. I sensed the chasm to 
Phyrexia, of course-it is always there-but I sensed 
another, too, and threw myself across it. It was a terrible 
passage, Xantcha. I lost you. I would not have survived 
myself if Lady Serra had not found me and put me inside 
that cocoon you just saw.
    "Such a marvelous artifact! If there is life, any life 
at all, the cocoon will sustain it and nurture it until the 
whole is healed. I am well again, Xantcha, well and whole 
as I have not been since I left Phyrexia, since before 
Phyrexia .. . since I met you. The principle is ingenious. 
To make her plane, Serra has treated time itself as a 
liquid, as a stream where water flows at different 
speed...."
    Xantcha swallowed hard. It didn't help. She stopped 
listening to Urza ramble about the wonders of Serra's 
cocoon. His recounting of events was laced through with 
simplifications that were no better than lies: so I decided 
to retreat and I 'walked away didn't accurately describe 
what she remembered of Urza's Phyrexian invasion and was 
probably no better at describing how the skirmish with the 
turtle-avengers ended or how they'd come to Serra's realm, 
but Urza remembered what he wanted to remember and forgot 
the rest.
    He had rescued her from the turtles. Never mind asking 
if he'd cared about anything beyond keeping her away from 
Phyrexian scrutiny. His grasp might not have been firm. He 
might have lost her by accident. And he had been ill ... 
since Phyrexia, but not before.
    Xantcha was relieved to see Urza looking vigorous 
again, pleased to see him talking and moving in a mortal 
way, but she could not escape the implications of those few 
words: since I met you. They echoed ominously in her own 
thoughts. Had Urza decided something, perhaps everything, 
was her fault?
    That warm greeting in the lower hall had been less 
relief or enthusiasm, than guilt.
    Xantcha glanced at Serra, wondering what role she had 
played. Romance? That seemed unlikely with Urza . . . 
unnecessary, too, when she could distract him with the 
cocoon. After she'd gotten rid of Urza's annoying, 
Phyrexian companion?
    "You want to know what I did when you were found?" 
Serra asked, an indication that she was sensitive to 
thought and, perhaps, did not find Xantcha's mind as empty 
as Urza did.
    "I know what you did, why did you do it? What had I 
done to you or your perfect realm?"
    "All things, natural or artifact, are created around a 
single essence. Your essence is black mana. When I created 
my plane, I created it around white mana, because the 
underlying essence plays a pivotal role in determining the 
character of a thing. White mana is serene, harmonic. It 
has the constancy that allows my plane to be the safe haven 
I desired. Black mana is discord, suspicion, and darkness. 
There is black mana here-it was not possible to eliminate 
it entirely-but it is only the small remainder that 
balances the rest-"
    "I told you it is not so simple," Urza interrupted 
their host. "Lady Serra turned away from all that was real 
to make this place. She created it out of sheer will. But 
it seems there is a flaw, a fallacy, in willful creation. 
Outside, in the multiverse which is unbounded, balance 
simply is and all planes are balanced among all the 
essences. Inside, when a plane is created by an act of 
single will, balance is impossible. One essence must 
dominate and another become the odd fellow."
    "I knew this place reminded me of Phyrexia!" 
Momentarily forgetting everything else, Xantcha savored the 
satisfaction of solving a thorny puzzle. "The teacher-
priests said the Ineffable made Phyrexia. I thought they 
meant that we all answered to him, that we were all part of 
his plan, but it was more than that. The Ineffable created 
Phyrexia. It was nothing, nothing at all, before he made 
it."
    "Precisely," Urza agreed. "I had reached the same 
conclusion. A created plane, cut off from the rest of the 
multiverse by an unfathomable chasm, no wonder it was so 
hard to find! But, inherently unbalanced! Think of it, 
Xantcha. Lady Serra retreats to her cocoon where she adds 
her will to her plane's flux, constantly keeping it almost 
in balance, but never quite and never for long. It always 
slips away. She prunes it to keep it small-"
    "Small's never been a part of the Ineffable's plan-"
    "Excuse me!" Serra said firmly and in her own language, 
which neither Xantcha nor Urza had been using.
    The air in Xantcha's lungs became so heavy she couldn't 
speak and even Urza seemed to be at a loss for words.
    "As I was saying." The lady's tone implied she'd 
tolerate no more interruptions. "The only black mana here 
is here because it cannot be eliminated. Nothing here has 
black mana as its underlying essence. Such a thing, natural 
or artifact, would disrupt everything around it. When the 
archangels found you and Urza, both near death and unable 
to speak for yourselves, they-I- determined that you had 
swallowed a piece of him. You were clinging to him. And 
your essence was black-is black.
    "They have standing orders. Safe haven cannot be 
extended to anything with an underlying black mana essence. 
Because you had a piece of him, and we did not know then if 
it was a vital piece, I sent you away-put you in 
quarantine-while my cocoon restored Urza. His underlying 
essence is white mana, the same as ours. There was no risk. 
The cocoon purged him of a black mana curse."
    The Ineffable, Xantcha thought. The Ineffable had place 
a spark in Urza's skull as surely as Gix had placed one in 
hers all those centuries ago. She said nothing, though, 
because Serra would object, and because she wanted to hear 
Urza's version of events before proposing her own.
    If black mana was suspicion, then Xantcha had become 
black mana incarnate.
    "It was not a vital piece, of course," Serra continued. 
"Urza explained how he'd enabled you to survive the 
journeys between planes when he emerged from the cocoon, 
but by then ..."
    By then, what? Xantcha asked silently, eager to hear 
how Serra would wriggle free of the truth.
    The lady hesitated and Urza plunged into the silence. 
"By then, her plane needed tending. She needed tending! 
Your presence alone had been enough to disrupt the balance 
more than it had ever been disrupted. You were well and 
truly lost by then, and I had no idea that you'd survived 
at all. My grasp had been weak to begin with. I asked the 
elders here, and they said I'd been alone when archangels 
brought me to the palace."
    "They lied," Xantcha snapped, unable to stifle her 
indignation. She wished Kenidiern had not taken his leave. 
She'd liked to have seen his face when he'd heard that 
remark.
    "Misinformed," Urza prevaricated. "I was alone. The 
archangels separated us, took us in different directions. 
The sisterhood had no idea what I was talking about."
    "They knew, Urza. They sent Sosinna to die with me-" At 
least that was what Sosinna had assumed. But there were 
other possibilities. Serra said she had decided what would 
be done with her and Urza both. Xantcha looked straight at 
Serra. "Someone sent Sosinna to die with me."
    "I cannot keep up with you!" the lady complained. 
"Either of you. You should hear yourselves, switching 
languages every other phrase, every other word. You have 
been together too long. No one else could possibly 
understand you." She took Urza's hand. "My friend, my offer 
stands, I will take her wherever you think best, but this 
is something for you to work out between yourselves. That 
piece of you she holds within her, surely it is a vital 
part of your memory, Urza. You should consider carefully 
before abandoning it."
    Serra faded, 'walking somewhere else within her realm, 
leaving Urza and Xantcha alone in the golden light from the 
cocoon.
    "What offer, Urza? Abandon it? Abandon me?"
    But Urza was staring at the place where Serra had 
stood, "She was angry. I had no notion, no notion at all. 
You should not have done that, Xantcha. It was very 
ungracious to speak your mind in a way that Lady Serra 
couldn't understand. She doesn't understand that the 
Phyrexians emptied your mind. I must find her and 
apologize."
    He started to fade as well.
    "Urza!" Xantcha called him back. "Waste not, want not-
you don't hear the words or their meanings! She said both 
of us. We were both speaking whatever words fit best. We do 
that, we've done it from the beginning. We've been too many 
places and seen too many things that no one else has seen. 
We have our own way of talking. We might just as well be 
one mind with two bodies."
    "No! That can't be," he insisted. "Lady Serra is a 
Planeswalker. You aren't. She saw great tragedy, as I did 
on Dominaria, and she made this place, this plane, as a 
memorial to what she'd lost. She understands me, Xantcha. 
No one else has understood me. I've been happy here with 
her."
    "Who wouldn't be happy in a world of their own making? 
The Ineffable is happy. The Ineffable understood you."
    Urza whirled around. "Don't try to tempt me. That trap 
is sprung, Xantcha."
    "What trap?" she retorted, but beneath the surface her 
fears and suspicions had intensified. "What offer, Urza? 
What's happened to you while I was floating on that island? 
What changed your mind about me?"
    "Lady Serra healed me. Her cocoon healed me of all the 
taint and curse that Phyrexia has laid on me since Mishra 
and I let them back into Dominaria."
    He reached for her. Xantcha eluded him.
    "It's not your fault, Xantcha. No one is blaming you, 
least of all me. The one you call the Ineffable used you. 
He could not tempt me directly, so he made you to tempt me, 
to lead me to him. Oh, I knew you were dangerous, I've 
known that since I rescued you. I knew you could never be 
completely trusted, but I thought I was strong enough, 
clever enough to use you myself.
    "Your Ineffable has lost his power over me, Xantcha. 
You were merely his tool, his arrow aimed at my heart. All 
these centuries that you've been beside me, I have been 
obsessed with simple vengeance. I didn't see the larger 
patterns until you were gone. It is all Lady Serra can to 
do keep her plane balanced. She knows that some day she 
will grow tired and it will fail. She does not let it 
expand. Created planes fail. They cannot evolve. They dare 
not grow. They are doomed from the moment of their 
creation. I understand that now, only natural planes 
endure. Yawg-"
    "Don't-"
    "Your Ineffable was exiled from some other plane before 
Dom-inaria. He thinks of Phyrexia not as a safe haven, as 
Serra thinks of her realm, but as a place to build a 
conquering army. Twice he has tried to conquer Dominaria, 
and he will try again. I know it. And I have wasted all my 
time looking for Phyrexia, trying to conquer Phyrexia-"
    "I told you it couldn't be done."
    "Yes. Yes, you did. Your creator knew I would not 
believe you. He is mad, but he is also cunning and clever. 
That is why he emptied your mind. That is how he tempted me 
off the path."
    And if the Ineffable was mad, but cunning, what did 
that leave Urza? There was truth and logic wound through 
Urza's argument. Phyrexia was the Ineffable's creation as 
this world of floating islands was Serra's creation, and 
Phyrexia was the rallying point for a conquering army. If 
all had gone according to plan, Xantcha would have been 
part of that army, at least as the demon Gix had conceived 
the army while the Ineffable slept. . . .
    Serra slept in the cocoon to keep her world alive. Had 
the Ineffable slept for the same reason? Was that why the 
priests warned the newts, Never speak the Ineffable's name 
lest he be awakened?
    "You awoke him," Xantcha said incredulously, 
interrupting Urza's diatribe which had gone on while she 
asked herself questions. "When you rode your dragon into 
Phyrexia you must have awakened the Ineffable."
    "No, Xantcha, you will not lead me astray again. I know 
what must be done. Yawgmoth is a Planeswalker, like Serra 
and me. Only Planeswalkers can create planes, and 
Planeswalkers are born in natural worlds. No one born here 
can 'walk, no Phyrex-ian can 'walk. So Yawgmoth was born on 
a natural plane and driven out. I will find that plane 
where Yawgmoth was born, and when I do, I will know his 
secrets and his weaknesses. I will find the records of 
those who cast him out, and I will learn how they won their 
victory. I will find the tools that I need to build the 
artifacts that will keep Yawgmoth away from Dominaria and 
away from any other natural plane he might covet."
    "That's reasonable," Xantcha conceded. "If we knew when 
the Ineffable created Phyrexia-"
    "No! I have said too much already! You have no thoughts 
of your own, Xantcha. Whatever you think, whatever you say, 
comes from Yawgmoth. It is not your fault, but I dare not 
listen to you. We must go our separate ways, you and I. 
Lady Serra discussed this before you arrived. She is 
willing to take you to a natural plane she knows. That's 
the offer she mentioned. I have not seen it, but she says 
it is a green plane, with much water and many different 
races. I think it must be like the Dominaria of my youth. 
You will do well there, Xantcha."
    Xantcha was a breath short of speechless. "You can't 
mean that. You can't. Look at me, Urza. I am what I am, 
what I've always been. What would a newt like me do forever 
on a single world?" Never mind that it had been her destiny 
to sleep on such a world.. . .
    Urza reached for her and this time caught her. "You've 
always done very well for yourself. You trade, you travel, 
you learn all their languages, you scratch a little garden 
in the dirt. When I rescued you, I never imagined we'd be 
together as long as we have been."
    "I've never imagined anything else."
    "Xantcha, you don't imagine anything that Yawgmoth 
didn't put inside your skull. I will win your vengeance, 
trust me. You cannot climb into the Lady's cocoon. Black 
mana is your underlying essence. The cocoon would destroy 
you, or you would destroy it. I'm sorry, but it has to be 
this way."
    "You can't just abandon me ... not to Serra! Who will 
you talk to? Who else understands, truly understands."
    "I will miss you, Xantcha, more than you can imagine. 
You have been my ward against loneliness and, yes, even 
madness. You have a good heart, Xantcha. Even Lady Serra 
admits that. She finds no fault with your heart."
    Heart.
    Xantcha wriggled out of his embrace. "Give me your 
knife." She had nothing but her ragged, dirty robe and a 
pair of sandals.
    Urza had a leather sheath slung from his belt. If it 
wasn't real, he could make it real with a thought. "Please, 
Urza let me have your knife, any knife."
    "Xantcha, don't be foolish. You were always happiest 
when we settled in one place."
    "I'm not going to be foolish. I just want to borrow 
your knife! I'll find something else that's sharp-"
    She eyed the cocoon's golden crystals, and Urza 
relented. The knife he handed her had a blade no longer 
than her longest finger-which would have been plenty long 
enough to slash her throat, if she'd been determined to 
bleed to death. But Xantcha had never in her life wanted to 
die. She wasn't fond of pain, either, when there were other 
alternatives, which, at that moment there weren't.
    Xantcha put a few paces between them. Then, with a 
steady hand, she plunged the short knife into her flank 
where she'd tucked her heart away. Her hand was shaking as 
she lengthened the incision. Urza tried to stop her. Panic 
gave her the strength to reach inside.
    "My heart," she said, offering him the bloodstained 
amber. "If you think I'm untrustworthy, if you think I 
belong to the Ineffable, crush it and I'll die. I swore I'd 
never betray you. I'd rather die than live knowing that 
you've abandoned me."
    "Xantcha!" Urza reached for the wound, which he could 
heal with a touch.
    She staggered backward. "Take it! If I am what you say 
I am, I don't want to live. But if you won't kill me, then 
take me with you."
 
                        CHAPTER 17
 
    Xantcha awoke with her butt on the ground and her back 
against an apple tree's broken trunk. Torn branches with 
upside-down leaves blocked her view of the world. There 
were green apples piled in her lap and the crook of her 
throbbing arm. The portal explosion had thrown her so hard 
she'd shattered a tree when she fell, but Urza's armor had 
kept her whole.
    Ratepe stood among the branches, looking anxious, but 
not at her.
    "How long was I out?" she asked, reaching for the 
waterskin he dangled with her good arm.
    "A bit..."
    He dropped the waterskin in her lap. Whatever had his 
attention wasn't letting it go. She pulled the cork with 
her teeth and took a swallow before asking:
    "What's out there?"
    "He came out of nowhere, as soon as you'd fallen. His 
eyes blazed lightning and fire."
    Xantcha imagined the worst. "Another Phyrexian?"
    She tried to stand but armor or no armor, Phyrexian or 
no Phyrexian, she'd taken a beating, and her body wasn't 
ready for anything. Latching onto the hem of Ratepe's 
tunic, Xantcha dragged herself upright.
    The awe-inspiring invader had been Urza, not another 
Phyrex-ian. Garbed in stiff armor and looking like a 
painted statue, he contemplated the metal-and-oil wreckage. 
He carried an ornate staff, the source of the lightning web 
that ebbed and flowed around him. Xantcha thought Urza had 
lost that staff ages ago when they were dodging Phyrexian 
ambushes. She wasn't entirely pleased to see it again.
    Her battered arm wanted out of the armor. Xantcha would 
have preferred to wait until she had a better sense of 
Urza's mood, but there wasn't time for that. She silently 
recited the mnemonic that dissolved the armor. Her arm 
swelled immediately.
    "Has he said anything?" she asked.
    "Not a word. The way he looked, I got out of his way. 
Might've been better if there had been another Phyrexian 
for him to fry?"
    "Might've," Xantcha agreed.
    If there'd been an upright Phyrexian in the vicinity, 
Urza would have had another target besides her. She 
couldn't remember the last time he'd come charging to her 
rescue. In point of fact, she didn't think he had come to 
her rescue. Since they'd gotten to Dominaria, Xantcha's 
heart had sat gathering dust on a shelf in Urza's alcove. 
She didn't think Urza had given it a second thought in over 
a century, but she wasn't surprised that he'd been watching 
it closely while she and Ratepe were away. She imagined it 
had flashed when she hit the tree.
    Best get it over with, she decided and said to Ratepe, 
"You wait here," though there was no chance that he'd pay 
attention, and she was grateful for the help clambering 
through the tangled branches.
    "Been a long time since I've seen a compleat one," she 
said casually, starting the conversation in the middle, 
which was sometimes the best way when Urza was rigid and 
wrapped in power.
    "You should have known better than to engage a 
Phyrexian with my brother beside you!"
    Urza was angry. His eyes were fire, his breath sulfur 
smoke and sparks. Xantcha winced when they landed on her 
face. He either hadn't noticed-or didn't care-that she 
wasn't encased in his armor. She was groping for the words 
that would calm him when Ratepe spoke up.
    "This was my idea. We wouldn't have gotten into trouble 
if I hadn't badgered her into tracking the riders away from 
Tabarna's palace."
    Urza turned without moving. "Palace?" He'd followed her 
heart between-worlds and didn't know where, precisely, they 
were.
    "Pincar City's a short, hard ride for six men on good 
horses," Xantcha said and pointed northwest. "We spotted 
the riders going out a sea gate at sunrise. It was my 
decision to get involved when I saw them laying down an 
ambulator's nether end."
    "An ambulator, here?"
    Urza turned his head, looking for one. He was in the 
here and now again. Xantcha relaxed.
    "We blew it up in the firepots. They had the nether end 
here. I sure didn't want to go through to get the prime, 
and I didn't want to risk carrying a loose nether around 
with me, especially not after what came out. I swear I was 
expecting sleepers and, at the outside, a tender-priest. 
Nothing like this."
    Urza rolled the wreckage with his staff. Bright, 
compound eyes lopked up at the sun, metal parts clattered, 
and Ratepe leapt a foot in the air, thinking it was still 
alive.
    "They've sent a demon," Urza mused, slipping out of 
Efuand, into his oldest language, pure ancient Argivian.
    "Not a demon," Xantcha corrected, sticking with Efuand. 
"Some new kind of priest. Not as bad as a demon, but pretty 
bad when you were expecting a cadre of sleepers."
    "How do you know what it was if you've never seen it 
before?" Ratepe asked. A reasonable question, though 
Xantcha wished he hadn't been staring at Urza's eyes as he 
asked it.
    "Yes," Urza added, back to Efuand. "How can you be 
sure?" He tipped his staff toward one of the two Efuand 
corpses lying near the Phyrexian. "Are they sleepers? They 
have the smell of Phyrexia around them."
    Xantcha swallowed her shock. Urza had long admitted 
that she was better at scenting out Phyrexians, but he'd 
never hinted how much better, and she'd never tried to put 
the distinctions into words, any words from any language, 
including Phyrexian. "This is a priest-" she nudged the 
wreckage with her foot-"because it looks like a priest."
    "That's not an answer," Ratepe chided.
    "I'm not finished!"
    Xantcha got on her knees and with her good hand 
attempted to loosen the Phyrexian's triangular face-plate. 
It was a struggle. The tenders had compleated it carefully, 
and it had recently received a generous allocation of 
glistening oil to bind what remained of its flesh to its 
metal carapace. Once she'd got her fingertips under one 
sharp corner, Ratepe helped her pry it off.
    Shredded leather clung to the interior of the plate, 
matching the shreds of a skinless but still recognizably 
childish face that it had covered.
    "It had compleated eyes," Xantcha explained, indicating 
the coiled wires emerging from the empty sockets. "Only the 
higher priests and warriors have compleat eyes. And it had 
an articulated mouth; that's definitely priest-compleat. 
Diggers and such, they just have boxes in their chests. And 
all the metal's the same, not scraps. That's priest-
compleat, too. It's got no guts, just an oil bladder. A 
priest's got muscles and nerves, compleated, of course, 
joined with gears and wire, but it's got the brain it was 
decanted with. The brain makes it go. That's why most 
Phyrexians have two arms, two legs, its brain knows two 
arms, two legs-"
    "You said they weren't flesh," Ratepe interrupted, a 
bit breathless and green-cheeked. He'd told her once that 
he hadn't been able to help with the butchering on his 
family's farm. Probably he wished he hadn't helped her now.
    "This isn't flesh." She tore off a shredded bit. Not 
surprisingly, he wouldn't take it from her hand, but Urza 
did. "This is what flesh becomes when it is compleated."
    "They start with a living man and transform him into 
this," Urza's voice was flat and cold as he ground the 
shred between his fingers.
    "They start with a newt," Xantcha said flatly.
    "So, this is what would have happened to ..." Ratepe 
couldn't finish his thought aloud.
    "If I'd been destined to become a priest."
    She could remember the Xantcha who'd waited, hope 
against hope, for the tender-priests to come for her. Would 
she have been happier if they had? There was no Phyrexian 
word for happiness.
    "And my brother?" Urza flicked the shred into the 
weeds. "Did he become a priest? Is that what I fought in 
Argoth? His skin had been stretched over metal plates, over 
coiled wire. What was he?"
    "A victim," Ratepe answered before Xantcha had a 
chance. "What about the demons and the sleepers?"
    She chose to answer the easy part first. "Sleepers are 
newts, uncompleated, the way we came out of the vats. But 
there's oil in the vats, and the smell never goes away. 
That's how I spot them."
    "This one recognized you?" Ratepe always had another 
question.
    Xantcha shrugged. "Maybe, if I hadn't gotten its 
attention first." She rubbed the hollow of her neck. "That 
left arm, Urza. It shot something new at me. Your armor 
barely stopped it, and for a moment I was glowing blue. And 
those canisters you made for the firepots? The glass shards 
are worthless, but the shrieking ones, they brought this 
priest to its knees."
    Urza snapped the wreck's left arm at the shoulder with 
no more apparent effort than she'd need to break a twig. He 
angled it this way and that in the sun as glistening oil 
poured over his hand.
    "Do sleeprs know what they are?" Yet another question 
from Ratepe.
    "I was destined to sleep and I knew, so I assume they 
know, but I think, lately, that I'm wrong. The sleepers 
I've seen don't seem to recognize one another, don't seem 
to know they weren't born. And if you were going to ask-" 
she pointed to the Efuand corpses-"they're not sleepers."
    "How do you know?" Urza demanded. "How can you be 
certain? They're man-shaped, not like you. And they smell."
    Xantcha rolled her eyes. "Gix corrected the man-woman 
mistake before they excoriated him. Sleepers were men and 
women before I left the First Sphere. Phyrexians know about 
gender,
    Urza, they've just decided it's the way of flesh and 
not the way they're going to follow. These Efuands, they've 
got oil on the outside from handling the ambulator. Right 
now, you smell of glistening oil. Sleepers have oil on the 
inside, in their breath."
    "So you cover your mouth?" Ratepe asked.
    She nodded. He'd watched her do that more than once. 
"If they're not breathing, you might have to cut them open 
to be sure."
    "Have you cut them open, to be sure?" Urza asked.
    Xantcha answered. "I've always been sure."
    She met Urza's eyes, they were mortal-brown just then. 
How many times in the past two hundred years had she sent 
him out to confirm her sightings? He always said she'd been 
correct, always told her never to risk encountering them 
again, but had he ever scented a Dominarian sleeper?
    "I have cut them open," Urza confessed. "I've killed 
and eviscerated men and women because they smelled, 
faintly, of Phyrexia. But when I examined them outside, I 
saw only men and women, not what you have become, what my 
brother became. Even on the inside, there was nothing 
unusual about them. They had a black mana essence, but 
essence isn't everything. It doesn't make a man or woman a 
Phyrexian."
    Xantcha didn't know what to say and was grateful when 
Ratepe asked:
    "What about demons?"
    "The demons are what they are-and that is an answer. 
They're as old as Phyrexia, as old as the Ineffable. 
They're powerful, they're evil. They smell of oil, of 
course, but, in Phyrexia, I knew a demon when I saw one 
because I felt fear inside me."
    "Mishra met a demon." Ratepe's eyes were glazed. His 
attention was focused between his ears where he heard the 
Weakstone sing. "Gix."
    The bees in the orchard were louder than Ratepe's 
whispered declaration, but he got Xantcha's attention and 
Urza's too.
    "Names are just sounds," Urza said, the same as he'd 
said when Xantcha told him-long before she read The 
Antiquity Wars-the only demon's name she knew. "The 
Brotherhood of Gix was ancient before I was born. They 
venerated mountains, gears, and clockwork. They were 
susceptible to Phyrexian corruption after my brother and I 
inadvertently broke the Thran lock against Phyrexia, but 
neither they nor their god could have been Phyrexian."
    "Gix promised everything. He knew how to bring metal to 
life and life to metal." Ratepe's voice remained soft. It 
was hard to tell if he was frightened by what he heard in 
his mind or dangerously tempted by it.
    "Ratepe?" Xantcha reached across the wrecked priest to 
take Ratepe's hand. It was limp and cold. "Those things 
didn't happen to you. Don't let Gix into your memory. Gix 
was excoriated more than three thousand years ago, immersed 
in steaming acid and thrown into the pit. He can't touch 
you."
    "You cannot seriously think that there is a connection 
between the memories placed in your mind and those in 
Mishra"s," Urza argued. "At best there is a coincidence of 
sound, at worst . . . remember, Xantcha, your thoughts are 
not your own! Haven't you learned?"
    Still clinging to Ratepe's hand, Xantcha faced Urza. 
"Why is it that everything you believe is the absolute 
truth and anything I believe is foolishness? I was meant to 
sleep here-right here in Dominaria. I dreamed of this 
place. I was decanted knowing die language that you and 
Mishra spoke as children. There is something about this 
world, above all the others, that draws Phyrexia back. They 
tried to conquer the Thran. That didn't work so they tried 
to get you and Mishra to conquer each other. Now they're 
trying a third time. Big wars didn't work, so they're 
trying lots of little wars. If you would listen to someone 
else for a change instead of always having to be the only 
one with the right answers-"
    Ratepe squeezed Xantcha's hand and helped her to her 
feet. "Xantcha's got a point, Urza. Why here? Why do the 
Phyrexians come back to this world?"
    Urza 'walked away rather than answer, and this time he 
didn't come back.
    "I shouldn't have challenged him." Xantcha leaned 
against Ratepe, grateful to have someone to share her 
misery with, and aware, too, that she would have spoken 
much differently if there hadn't been three of them 
gathered around the Phyrexia wreckage. "I always lose my 
temper at the wrong time. He was so close to seeing the 
truth, but I had to have it all."
    "You're more like Mishra than I am." Ratepe wrapped his 
arms around her. "Must've been something Gix poured in your 
vat."
    He was jesting, but the joke made Xantcha's heart skip 
a beat. What had Oix said on the First Sphere plain? She 
remembered the spark and walling herself within herself, 
but the words hung outside of memory's reach. What had 
happened to Mishra's flesh? Flesh was rendered, never 
wasted. Had she been growing in the vats while Urza and 
Mishra fought? She'd thought she had.
    Xantcha leaned back against Ratepe's arms and saw the 
thoughtful look on his face.
    "Don't," she said, a plea more than a command. "Don't 
say anything more. Don't think anything more."
    Arms tightened around her, one at her waist, the other 
cradling her head. She couldn't see his face, but she knew 
he hadn't stopped thinking.
    Xantcha hadn't either, though there was neither joy nor 
satisfaction in any of her conclusions.
    "We've got to leave," she said many silent moments 
later. "Someone's going to wonder what happened to the 
riders."
    "If we're lucky, someone. Something, if we're not."
    Xantcha grimaced. Ratepe's humor was missing its mark, 
and her arm, compressed between them, kept her edgy with 
its throbbing. "Whichever, we're going to have to leave 
this for someone else to sort out. I should've shoved the 
priest through before we destroyed the ambulator."
    "Then there wouldn't have been anything for Urza to 
look at."
    "Not sure whether that was good or bad."
    Ratepe let her go and did most of the work assembling 
their supplies in a pile for the sphere to flow around. One 
look at his face and Xantcha knew he was disappointed that 
they weren't returning to Pincar City, but he never raised 
the subject. Her elbow had swollen to the size of a winter 
melon and her arm, from the shoulder down, looked as if it 
had been pumped full of water.
    Her fingers resembled five purple sausages. Her arm was 
rigid, too. It had been centuries since she'd had an injury 
Urza hadn't healed, She'd almost forgotten how newts 
stiffened when they broke their bones.
    If Xantcha had the nerves Ratepe had been born with, 
she would have been curled up, whimpering, on the ground. 
As it was, she was grateful for Ratepe's company, sought 
the calmest wind-streams through the air, and brought them 
down frequently.
    Twice over the following several days they spotted 
gangs of bearded men riding good horses through the summer 
heat. She grit her teeth and followed them, still hoping to 
find a Shratta stronghold, but both times the men ended 
their treks peaceably in palisaded villages. Either the 
religious fanatics had gone to ground or they'd gone from 
dreaded to welcome in little more than a season. She 
thought of going up to the gates and inviting herself into 
their councils, as she had scarcely a season earlier. Her 
arm kept her from acting on those thoughts.
    "It was your idea to disperse those villagers, let them 
spread the word that it was Red-Stripes who were killing 
and burning in the Shratta's name," Xantcha reminded Ratepe 
as she guided the sphere to its prior course. "You're the 
one who told me that I was a friend because I was the enemy 
of your enemy. What did you expect?"
    "Not this," Ratepe replied with a scowl. "Maybe I'm 
wiser now. The enemy of my enemy still has his own plans 
for me."
    Xantcha let the provocative comment slide.
    High summer was a season of clear, dry weather on 
Gulmany's north coast. They rounded the western prong of 
the Ohran Ridge without excitement and hit the first of the 
big southern coast storms at sunrise the next day. For 
three days they camped in a bear's hillside den waiting for 
the rain to stop. Xantcha's arm turned yellow. Her fingers 
came back to life, knuckle by spasmed knuckle.
    Xantcha was in no hurry to get back to the cottage. 
Once her elbow recovered from its battering, she could 
enjoy Ratepe's company, and his attentions. There was 
always a bit of frustration. She simply didn't have the 
instincts for romance, or even pleasure, that Ratepe 
expected her to have. They loved and laughed and argued, 
walked as much as they soared the windstreams. They didn't 
see the cottage roof until the moon had swung twice through 
its phases, and there was a hint of frosts to come in the 
mountains' morning air.
    "He's there," Ratepe said, pointing at the lone figure.
    Xantcha blinked to assure herself that her eyes weren't 
lying, but it was Urza, tall, pale-haired and stripped to 
the waist beside the hearth, vigorously stirring something 
that bubbled and glowed in her best stew pot.
    She'd always thought of Urza as a scholar, a man whose 
strength came from his mind, not his body, though Kayla had 
written that her husband built his own artifacts and had 
the stamina of an ox. Over the centuries, Urza had become 
dependent on abstract power, using sorcery or artifice 
rather than his hands whenever possible. The sight of a 
tanned, muscular, and sweating Urza left Xantcha 
speechless.
    She would have preferred to approach this unfamiliar 
Urza cautiously from the side, but he spotted the sphere 
and waved.
    "He seems glad to see us." Ratepe's voice was guarded.
    Maybe it wasn't that Phyrexians had no imagination, but 
that their imaginations never prepared them for the truth. 
Xantcha reminded herself that Urza had her heart on a 
shelf. He'd followed it to Efuan Pincat. He could have 
found her again or crushed the amber stone in his fist.
    She brought the sphere down beside the well. Urza ran 
toward them-ran, as a born-man might run to greet his 
family. He embraced Ratepe first, slapping him heartily on 
the back and calling him "brother." Xantcha turned away, 
telling herself she'd learned her lesson in the apple 
orchard. Urza didn't have to be sane, he didn't have to see 
anything except as he wished to see it, as long as he 
fought the Phyrexians. She hadn't quite finished the self-
lecture when Urza put his hands on her shoulders.
    "I've been busy," he said. "I went back to all those 
places I'd been before. I trusted my instincts. If I 
thought it was Phyrex-ian, I believed it was Phyrexian. I 
didn't need outside proof.
    They have a new strategy, Xantcha. Instead of fighting 
their own war, or pulling the strings on one big war, 
they've stirred a hornet's nest of little wars just in Old 
Terisiare alone. I have no notion what they might be doing 
elsewhere.
    "But I'll find out, Xantcha. I know Dominaria less well 
than I know a score of other planes, but that's going to 
change, too. Come, let me show you-"
    He pulled Xantcha toward the cottage. She dug in her 
heels, a futile, but necessary protest.
    "No, Xantcha, this time-this time I swear to the Thran, 
it is not like before." He gestured to Ratepe. "Brother! 
You come too. I have a plan!"
    Urza did have a plan, and it truly was like nothing 
he'd done before. He'd drawn maps on his walls, maps on the 
floor, a map on the worktable, and maps on every other 
reasonably smooth surface in the workroom. No wonder he was 
working outside. The many-colored maps were annotated with 
numerals she could read and a script she couldn't. None of 
them made particular sense until she recognized the 
crescent-shaped capital of Baszerat on their common wall. 
After that she recognized several towns and cities, drawn 
upside down by her instincts, but accurate, so far as she 
could remember. She guessed the annotations included the 
number of sleepers he'd found in each city and asked:
    "Are you going to drive the sleepers back to Phyrexia?"
    "Yes, in proper time. The first time no one was left 
and the message was lost. The last time, no one knew what 
we faced until the very end and as you pointed out-" Urza 
included Ratepe in the discussion-"nobody believed the 
message. This time I will take no chances. The Phyrexians 
have chosen to fight a myriad of wars. I will fight them 
the same way, with a myriad of weapons. I will expose them! 
Watch!"
    Urza left her and Ratepe standing in the middle of the 
room while he fussed with a tattered basket. His eagerness 
and delight would have been contagious, if Xantcha hadn't 
watched too many times before. She'd exchanged a worried-
hopeful glance with Ratepe when the world erupted into 
chaos.
    The chaos was a sound like Xantcha had never 
experienced, sound more piercing than the howling winds 
between-worlds. She tried to draw breath to yawn out her 
armor, but the sound had taken possession of her body. It 
shook her as a dog shook its fur after the rain and threw 
her to the floor. Her bones had turned to jelly before it 
reached into her skull and shook her mind out of her brain.
    Control and reason returned as suddenly as they had 
departed. Except for a few bruises and a badly bitten 
tongue, Xantcha was no worse than dazed. She knew her name 
and where she was, but the rest was muddled. Ratepe stood a 
little distance away. Xantcha realized he hadn't been 
affected by the attack, but before she could consider the 
implications, Urza was beside her, cupping her chin in his 
hands, taking the pain away.
    "It worked!" he exalted before she could stand. "I'm 
sorry, but there was no other way, and I had to be sure."
    "You? You did that to me?" She propped herself up on 
one elbow.
    "Wind, words, they're both the same. Sound is merely 
air in motion, like the sea. You said the priest collapsed 
because of the whistling shot. I have made a new artifact, 
Xantcha, a potent new weapon. It has no edge, no weight, no 
fire. It is sound."
    Urza opened his hand, revealing a lump roughly the size 
and shape of a ceiling spider. Xantcha couldn't accept that 
something so simple had laid her low.
    "It's too small," she complained. "Nothing so small 
could hurt so much."
    "You gave me the idea when you said the oil was inside 
the sleeprs. Sound, if it is the right sound, can move 
things, break things. The sound this artifact makes is one 
that shakes glistening oil until it breaks apart."
    Xantcha would have said oil could not be broken if she 
had not just endured a sound that had proven otherwise. "Do 
we throw them at the sleeprs?"
    "We plant them in all the places where Xantcha's 
scented sleepers," Ratepe said from the wall where he had 
studied several of the maps.
    "Yes! Yes, exactly right, Brother!" Urza left Xantcha 
on the floor. "We will scatter them like raindrops!"
    "What will set them off? They're too small for a wick 
or fuse."
    "Ah, the Glimmer Moon, brother. A strange thing, the 
Glimmer Moon. It has virtually no effect on tides, but on 
sorcery- white-mana sorcery-it is like a magnet, pulling 
the mana toward itself, sometimes strong, sometimes not so 
strong, but strongest when the Glimmer Moon reaches its 
zenith. So, very simple, I make a spindly crystal and 
charge one end with white mana. I put the crystal inside 
the spider, in a drop of water where it floats on its side. 
When the Glimmer Moon goes high, it tugs the charged end of 
the crystal, which stands up in the drop of water, and my 
little spider makes the noise that affected Xantcha, but 
not you or I. It is as good as an arrow!"
    "But just a bit more complicated," Ratepe warned.
    "Geometry, brother," Urza laughed. "Astronomy. 
Mathematics. You never liked mathematics! Never learned to 
think in numbers. I have done all the calculations." He 
gestured at the writing-covered walls.
    Xantcha had pulled herself to her feet. Her anger at 
being tricked had vanished. This was the Urza she'd been 
waiting for, the artifacts she'd been waiting for. "How 
powerful are they? I was what, maybe four paces away? How 
many will we need to flush out all the sleeprs in a city? 
Hundreds, thousands?"
    "Hundreds, maybe, in a town. Thousands, yes, in a city. 
The more you have, the greater the effect, though you must 
be very precise when you attach them to the walls. Too far 
is bad, too close is worse. They'll cancel each other out, 
and nothing at all will happen. I will show you in each 
town we pass through. And I will continue to refine them."
    Ratepe's face had turned pensive. Xantcha thought it 
was because he'd play no part in Urza's grand plan, but he 
proved her wrong, as usual.
    "We could just make things worse. I know Xantcha's 
Phyrex-ian, but when she fell just now I didn't guess she 
fell because she was Phyrexian. You're going to have 
something make a noise born-folks can hardly hear, but a 
few are going to collapse on the ground. People won't know 
why. They don't cut up corpses, they've never seen a 
Phyrexian priest. They'll think it's a god's doings and 
there's no guessing what they'll think after that."
    "The sleepers will be gone, Brother. Dead. Lying on the 
ground. Let men and women think a god has spoken, if that's 
their desire. Phyrexia will know that Dominaria has struck 
back; and that's what matters: the message we send to 
Phyrexia. It is as good as saying that the Thran have 
returned."
    "I'm only saying that if no one knows why, no one will 
understand, and ignorance is dangerous."
    "Then, Brother, what would you have me do?" Urza 
demanded. "Handwriting in the sky? A whisper in every 
Dominarian ear? Would you have another war? Is that what 
you want, Mishra- another war across Terisiare? This way 
there is no war. The land is not raped. No one dies."
    "The sleepers will die," Xantcha said.
    In her mind's eye she saw the First Sphere and the 
other newts, the other Xantcha with its orange hair. She'd 
slain newts herself-she'd slain that other Xantcha when it 
got between her and food-but when she thought about 
vengeance against Phyrexia, she thought about priests and 
demons, not newts or sleepers. Her head said they had to be 
eliminated-killed. The artifact-spider's sound had gripped 
her. She believed it could kill, but not quickly or 
painlessly, and if her hunch was correct, that many of the 
sleepers didn't know they were Phyrexian, they wouldn't 
know why they suffered.
    Ratepe and Urza were watching her.
    "They have to die," she said quickly, defensively. 
"There's no place for them...." A shiver ran down her back. 
Place, one of the oldest words in her memory. Her cadre 
never had a place. They were oxen, deprived of everything 
except their strength, used ruthlessly, discarded as meat 
when there was nothing left. "I'll do it," she snarled. 
"Don't worry. Waste not, want not. I'll do whatever has to 
be done until Phyrexia is rolled up like an ambulator and 
disappears." Her voice had thickened as it did when she 
yawned, but her throat was tight with tears, not armor. 
"But it's not true that no one will die."
    Urza strode toward her. "Xantcha," he said softly, 
insincerely. The open door beckoned. She ran through it. 
Urza tried to call her back:
    "Xantcha, no one's talking about you ... !" She ran too 
far to hear the rest.
 
                        CHAPTER 18
 
    There were other discussions, some less volatile, a few 
that had the three of them storming off in different 
directions, but in the end Ratepe and Xantcha fell in with 
Urza's plan to broadcast the screaming spiders-Ratepe named 
them-throughout Old Terisiare and anywhere else that Urza 
or Xantcha might sniff a Phyrexian in the air.
    They had about three seasons to get the spiders arrayed 
on dusty walls and ceilings. By Urza's calculations the 
Glimmer Moon would strike its zenith above Old Terisiare a 
few days short of next year's midsummer's eve. Xantcha had 
little time for visiting unfamiliar places or searching out 
new Phyrexian infestations. The windstreams weren't fast 
enough. Urza 'walked her to realms where glistening oil 
tainted the air. Then he left her with a cache of spiders 
while he 'walked on with several thousand more. Nine days 
later, he'd examine her glowing amber heart, find her, and 
take her back to the cottage where Ratepe waited for them.
    In a compromise between delusion and practicality, Urza 
had decided his brother's talents were uniquely suited to 
constructing spiders. Ratepe had tried to argue his way out 
of the responsibility, but Urza's instructions were clear 
and, aside from charging the white mana crystals, making 
the small artifacts was more tedious than difficult. Every 
nine days, when they were together at the cottage, Urza 
banished Ratepe and Xantcha from his workroom while he grew 
and charged the crystals.
    Summer ended, autumn vanished, winter came, all without 
disrupting their cycles.
    "Not that you couldn't do it," Urza would say, the same 
words every time he and Xantcha returned, as if they were 
written on the instructions he'd given Ratepe. "But you've 
been alone all this time, and Xantcha likes to talk to you. 
And I've got another idea or two I'd like to tinker with. I 
can make them better, make them louder, wider, more 
powerful. So, you two go on. Let me work. Go next door. 
Talk, eat, do as you like. I'll be busy here until tomorrow 
night."
    "He's as mad as he ever was," Xantcha said as Ratepe 
put his weight against the workroom door, cracking the 
late-winter ice that had sealed it since Urza and Xantcha 
had left nine days earlier.
    "He was mad long before the real Mishra died," Ratepe 
said lightly and regretted his nonchalance as he lost his 
footing on the slick wood. "You didn't really think 
anything was going to change that, did you?"
    Like Urza, the two of them had fallen into habits and 
scripts, at least until they'd lit the oil lamp and the 
brazier and warmed the blankets of Xantcha's old bed. They 
seldom talked much or ate after that until the lamp needed 
replenishing.
    "I want a favor from you," Ratepe said while Xantcha 
re-lit the lamp with a coal from the brazier.
    Xantcha looked up silently.
    "It's getting on toward a year."
    She'd been expecting that. Winter lingered on the 
Ridge. It was spring in the lowlands, a bit more than two 
months shy of the year she'd asked of Ratepe in Medran. She 
and Urza were three-quarters through the workroom maps, but 
their chances of finishing the job before midsummer were 
nil, and none if Ratepe demanded the freedom she'd sworn to 
give him.
    "You want to go back to Efuan Pincat." A statement, not 
a question. She made tea from the steaming water atop the 
brazier.
    "No, I can count as well as you-better, usually. Urza 
needs me here until midsummer, at least. I have my doubts, 
so do you, but nobody knows what happens next. We agreed to 
take the risks."
    "So, what's the favor?"
    "I want you to go back to Efuan Pincar."
    "Me?"
    "Everywhere else the Phyrexians are all sleepers-
everywhere, except Baszerat and Morvern, and they'll keep 
fighting each other with or without Phyrexian meddling. But 
I'm still worried about Efuan Pincar and the Shratta. We 
never went back-"
    She interrupted. "I did. I plastered the walls of 
Medran and seven other towns while Urza did Pincar City. 
You said midsummer's the biggest holy day of Avohir's year 
and everybody goes to the temples, so I put a few spiders 
in the sanctuaries, just in case, but I didn't smell 
anything suspicious. My guess is that the Red-Stripes wiped 
out the Shratta years ago. Maybe they had Phyrexian help, 
maybe not. It's history now."
    "I figured that, and that's why I want a favor. I've 
tinkered with the spiders-studied the changes that Urza's 
made since last summer, even made a few of my own and 
tested them, too."
    Xantcha raised her eyebrows as she strained the tea.
    "It's not like you didn't experiment with the cyst 
after Urza gave it to you," Ratepe retorted.
    Xantcha decided not to pursue the argument.
    "Urza doesn't count the crystals. I think he expects me 
to damage a few-and, anyway, we know the crystals work. 
It's the other part that I modified."
    "You're not trying them out on me." She slammed the 
straining bowl on the table for emphasis.
    "No, they're not like that, but I did change the sound 
they make. The way Urza had them set, the sound makes 
things boil. What I did makes solid things like rocks and 
especially mortar break down into sand and dust. And I want 
you to plant my spiders in the foundation of the Red-Stripe 
barracks and under the high altar of Avohir's temple in 
Pincar City. When the Glimmer
    Moon passes overhead, the sound will rattle the stones 
until they come apart."
    It would work, but, "Waste not, want not-why? Even if I 
could do it, why? Not that I care, personally, but Avohir 
is your god. Why would you want to turn Avohir's altar into 
rubble?"
    "And the Red-Stripe barracks. Both. I want to make a 
sign for every Efuand to see that whatever strikes down the 
sleepers strikes down the Shratta, too. If there's any left 
anywhere, I don't want some bearded fanatic to take 
advantage of what we've done. All right, the Shratta didn't 
kill my family, but they drove us out of the city. They 
burnt the schools and the libraries. If the Phyrexians got 
rid of them, well, that's a mark in their favor, but I 
don't want to take the chance. Will you do it, Xantcha? For 
me?"
    She followed the steam rising from her mug. "I'll talk 
to Urza."
    "Urza can't know."
    "Ratepe! I'm not just wandering out there. I 'walk out 
of here with Urza and nine days later I 'walk back with 
him. What am I supposed to do, yawn and hightail it up to 
Efuan Pincar the moment he sets me down and then hightail 
it back again?"
    "That's what I thought you'd do."
    "And when he asks about the spiders I was supposed to 
be planting?"
    "I thought of that. You'll tell him they didn't feel 
right so you didn't spread 'em around. I've learned how to 
make duds, too. If he gets angry, he'll be angry at me for 
being careless."
    "Wonderful."
    "You'll do it?"
    "Let me think about it. Lying to Urza. I can get angry 
with him, I can yell at him and keep secrets, but I don't 
know if I can outright lie to him."
    Ratepe didn't push, not that night, but he asked again 
the next time they were together and alone. If he'd gotten 
her angry, just once, she'd have put the whole cockeyed 
notion behind her, but Ratepe was too canny for that. 
Passionate, yet totally in control. Xantcha wondered what 
Kayla Bin-Kroog would have thought. She wondered whether 
Kayla would have stood under the stars as she herself did a 
few visits later and said:
    "We're getting to the end. He's taking me to Russiore 
tomorrow. It's not infested with sleepers. More important, 
it's not far from Efuan Pincar. I can get down the coast to 
Pincar City, plant your spiders and cover Russiore, too."
    Ratepe lifted Xantcha off the ground and, before she 
had a chance to protest, spun on his heels, whirling her 
around three times while he laughed out loud. She was 
gasping and giddy when her feet touched down.
    "I knew you would!"
    He kissed her, a kiss that began in joy and ended in 
passion as he lifted her up again.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    The next evening, when Urza took her wrist for 
"walking, Xantcha was sure that he knew she had extra 
spiders in her sack and deceit in her heart. She couldn't 
meet his eyes at their most ordinary.
    "There is no shame to it, Xantcha," Urza said moments 
later when they stood on a hillside above the seacoast 
principality of Russiore. "He is a young man and you prefer 
yourself as a woman. I heard you laughing with him last 
night. I racked my memory but I don't think I've ever heard 
you or him so happy. It does my old bones good. After 
Russiore, I shall go off and leave you two alone together."
    Urza vanished then, which was just as well, Xantcha 
needed to breathe and couldn't until he was gone.
    Una's bones, she thought with a shudder. Urza doesn't 
have any bones, she chided herself and yawned out the 
sphere.
    The sphere rose swiftly through the ground breezes 
until the ocean windstreams caught it and threw it south, 
an abrupt reminder-as if Xantcha needed one-that she made 
mistakes when she was distracted. She wove her hand through 
the wind, pushing the sphere to its limit. Dawn's light 
revealed Efuand villages. Morning found her walking the 
market road into Pincar City.
    Xantcha had scattered spiders all wintet without once 
breaking
    a sweat, but she was damp and pasty-mouthed when a Red-
Stripe guard asked her particulars at the city gate. He had 
a mortally unpleasant face, a mortally unpleasant smell.
    "Ratepe," she told him, "son of Mideah of Medran." 
Despite anxiety, Xantcha's accent was flawless, and the 
coins of Russiore were common enough along Gulmany's 
northern coast that she could offer a few as a bribe, if 
needs be.
    "Here for?"
    "I've come to pray before Avohir's holy book on the 
fifth anniversary of my father's death."
    Ratepe had said there was no more solemn obligation in 
a Efuand son's life. No born Red-Stripe would question it, 
and no Phyrexian would last long if it did.
    "Peace go with you," the Red-Stripe said and touched 
Xantcha on both cheeks, a gesture which Ratepe had warned 
her to expect. "May your burdens be lifted."
    Xantcha went through the gate in peace, her burdens 
hung from her shoulder, exactly as she'd packed them. She 
knew where the garrison barracks were and that they'd be 
swarming with Red-Stripes most of the day. That left the 
temple, which might be just as busy but was open to anyone 
who needed Avohir's grace. Ratepe had taught her the 
necessary prayers, when and where to wash her hands, and 
not to jump if anyone sprinkled seawater on her head while 
she was on her knees.
    Three thousand years, more worlds than she could count, 
and always-always-an outsider.
    The square altar was as tall as a man and stood on a 
stairway dais that was almost as high. Xantcha could barely 
see the holy book laid open atop it, although it was the 
largest book she'd ever seen-bigger than her bed. A huge 
cloth of red velvet covered the altar from the book to the 
dais. As Xantcha watched from the back of the sanctuary, an 
old man climbed the dais steps on his knees. At the top he 
lifted the velvet over his head and shoulders. He was 
letting Avohir dry his tears; she would be affixing 
Ratepe's spiders.
    Xantcha claimed a space at the end of the line of 
mourners, petitioners, and cripples shuffling along a 
marked path to the dais where a red-robed priest guarded 
the steps. She was under the great dome, halfway to the 
altar, when a second priest came to take the place of the 
first. The second priest also wore a red robe with its cowl 
drawn up. His beard, as black as Ratepe's hair, spilled 
onto his chest.
    Shratta, Xantcha thought, remembering what Ratepe had 
told her in the burning village.
    He'd been at his post a few moments before the air 
brought her the scent of glistening oil.
    Xantcha tried to get a look within the priest's cowl as 
her turn on the dais stairway neared. The oil scent was 
strong, but no stronger than with other sleepers. She 
didn't expect to see glowing or lidless eyes and his-its-
hands, which she tried unsuccessfully to avoid, had a 
fleshy feel around hers.
    "Peace be with you," he said, more sincere than the 
guard. Xantcha held her breath when he touched her cheeks. 
"May your burdens be lifted."
    The path was clear, as simple as that, as simple as 
Ratepe had promised it would be. She hobbled on her knees, 
like everyone else, raised the velvet drape and flattened 
an artifact against the dark stone. A second spider on the 
opposite side would be a good idea, four would be better. 
Xantcha gazed up into the dome as she left, looking for a 
sphere-sized escape hole.
    There were no holes in the roof, but there was one in 
the wall-an archway into a cloister where a few laymen in 
plain clothes appeared to be continuing their prayers. 
Xantcha took the chance and joined them. No one challenged 
her, and after she bruised her knees a while longer, she 
yawned out Urza's armor and left the cloister through a 
different door.
    The smell of oil was stronger in the corridor beyond 
the cloister. Not a great surprise. She was in the priests' 
private quarters now. The corridors were poorly ventilated, 
and under such circumstances she'd expected the taint to 
thicken, but there was something more. Xantcha palmed a 
handful of screaming spiders from her sack, affixed them to 
the wall, and pressed deeper into the tangled chambers 
behind the sanctuary. The scent grew stronger and more 
complex. She suspected there was an ambulator nearby, or 
perhaps one of the vertical disks she'd seen so long ago in 
Moag.
    We call them priests, she reminded herself, although 
there were no gods in Phyrexia, only the Ineffable, and 
blind obedience wasn't religion.
    Midway down a spiral stairway, Xantcha encountered a 
priest rushing for the surface. Without a gesture or 
apology, he shoved her against the spiral's spine. She 
slipped down two, treacherously narrow, steps before 
catching her balance. The scent of glistening oil was heavy 
in his wake, but except in rudeness, he hadn't noticed her.
    In her mind, Xantcha heard Ratepe muttering, 
Phyrexians: no imagination! Ratepe was young. He hid his 
fears in sarcasm. She put one of his stone-shattering 
spiders on the spiral's spine.
    The stairway ended in a vaulted crypt. Light came from 
a pair of filthy lanterns and Phyrexian glows attached 
haphazardly to the stone ribs overhead. The sight of 
Phyrexian artifacts answered a wealth of questions and left 
her feeling anxious within Urza's armor. Xantcha thought 
again of Moag and wondered if she shouldn't scurry back to 
Russiore, confess her deceit when Urza came for her, and 
let him explore the crypt instead of her. But the truth was 
that Xantcha feared Urza's anger more than she feared 
Phyrexia.
    Tiptoeing forward, Xantcha silently apologized to 
Ratepe. The crypt's air was pure Phyrexia. Not only was 
there some sort of passageway in Avohir's temple, it was 
wide open. She might have to tell Urza what she'd found, 
after she knew what it was, after she'd shared her 
discoveries with Ratepe, with Mishra.
    Xantcha came to another door, the source of a fetid 
Phyrexian breeze. She hesitated. She had her armor, a boot 
knife and a handful of fuming coins, a passive defense and 
no offense worth mentioning. Wisdom said, this is foolish, 
then she heard a sound behind her, on the spiral stairs, 
and wisdom said, hide!
    Three steps beyond the door the corridor jogged sharply 
to the right and into utter darkness. Xantcha put one hand 
behind her back and finger-walked into the unknown. The 
loudest sound was the pulsing in her ears. She had a sense 
that she'd entered a larger chamber when the breeze died.
    She had a sense, too, that she wasn't alone; she was 
right.
    "Meatling."
    Thirty-four hundred years, give or take a few decades, 
and Xantcha knew that voice instantly.
    "Gix."
    Light bloomed around him, gray, heavy light such as 
shone on the First Sphere, light that wasn't truly light, 
but visible darkness. Xantcha thought the demon was the 
light's source and needed a moment to discern the upright 
disk gleaming behind him.
    Gix had changed since the last time she'd seen him, 
corroded, crumbling, and thrust into a fumarole. He'd 
changed since the first time, too-taller. She looked at his 
waist when she looked straight ahead; symmetric, altogether 
more man-shaped, though his metal "skin" didn't completely 
hide the glistening sinews and tubes-like a born-man's 
veins only filled with glistening oil- that wound over his 
green-gold skin. Gix's forehead was monumental and framed a 
rubine gem that was almost certainly a weapon. His skull 
seemed to have been pivoted open along his brow ridge. A 
black-metal serrated spike ran from the base of his neck to 
the now-raised base of his skull. From the side, it looked 
like the spike was rooted in his spine and attached to a 
red, blue, and yellow fish.
    In another circumstance, the demon would have been 
ludicrous or absurd. Far beneath Avohir's altar, he was the 
image of malignity and horror. Xantcha stood transfixed as 
a narrow beam of blood-red light shone between her and 
Gix's bulging forehead. She felt surprise, then a command:
    Obey. Listen and obey.
    "Never." Urza's armor wasn't perfect protection against 
the demon's invasion of her mind, but added to her own 
stubbornness and to the walls she'd made ages ago. Xantcha 
defied the demon. "I'll die first."
    Gix grinned, all glistening teeth and malice. "Your 
wish-"
    He probed her mind again, brutally. Xantcha fed him 
images of his excoriation. The demon withdrew suddenly, his 
metallic chin tucked in a parody of mortal surprise.
    "So old?"
    Light sprang up in the portal chamber, a catacomb, with 
desiccated bodies heaped here and there, all male, all 
bearded. The Shratta, if not all of them, then at least a 
hundred of them, and probably their leaders. Replaced with 
Phyrexians or simply exterminated? Like as not, she'd never 
know. Whatever their crimes, Xantcha knew the Shratta would 
have suffered horribly before they died; that would have to 
suffice for Rat's vengeance.
    "Yes, I remember you," Gix whispered. "One of the 
first, and still here?" His metal-sheathed shoulders 
jerked. "No. Not sent. I saved you back . . . Waiting. 
Waiting . . ." The demon's voice faded. The light in its 
forehead flickered. "Xantcha." He made her name long and 
sibilant, like a snake sliding over dried leaves. "My 
special one. Here ... in Dominaria?"
    Before Gix had needed cables and talons to caress 
Xantcha chin. Now he used light and encountered Urza's 
armor.
    "What is this?"
    The light bored into her right eye, seeking Xantcha's 
past, her history. Defiantly, she threw out images of 
Urza's dragon burning through the Fourth Sphere ceiling.
    "Yes. Yes, of course. Locked out of Dominaria, where 
else would you go? I gave you purpose and you pursued it. 
You pursue it still."
    The light became softer. It caressed Xantcha's mind. 
She shivered within Urza's armor.
    "I'll tell Urza that the demon who destroyed his 
brother has returned."
    It was a guess on Xantcha's part, Ratepe had seen Gix 
in Mishra's Weakstone recordings, but he'd never said 
anything about the Phyrexians who'd undertaken Mishra's 
compleation. But it was a good guess.
    "Yes," Gix sighed. "Tell Urza that Gix has returned. 
Tell him the Thran are waiting for him."
    Xantcha didn't understand. The Phyrexians had fought 
the Thran. Her mind swirled with echoes of Urza's lectures 
about Koilos and a noble race that sacrificed itself for 
Dominaria's future.
    Gix laughed. All the raucous birds and chittering 
insects of summer couldn't have equaled the sound. "Did he 
tell you that? He knows better. He was there."
    The statement made no sense. Urza had found his eyes at 
Koilos and through them, remembered the final battle 
between the Thran and the Phyrexians, but he hadn't been 
there. Gix was toying with her, feeding on her confusion 
and terror, waiting for her to make the mistake that would 
let him into her secret places.
    "You have no secrets, Xantcha." More laughter. "I made 
the stone the brothers broke, and I made the brothers, too, 
and then I made you."
    "Lies," Xantcha shot back and remembered standing 
beside a vat. A body floated below the surface: dark 
haired, angular, sexless . . . her. "There were a thousand 
of us," she shot back.
    "Seven thousand, and only one like you. I looked for 
you . . . after."
    After he escaped the Seventh Sphere? "I have my own 
heart."
    "Yes. You have done well, Xantcha. Better than I hoped. 
I had plans for you. I still have them. Come back. Listen 
and obey!"
    Gix pulled a string in Xantcha's mind. She felt herself 
begin to unravel. Newts had no importance. Newts did what 
they were told. Newts listened and obeyed. She belonged 
with Gix, to Gix, in Phyrexia, her home. Gix would take 
care of her. The demon was the center. She would do as he 
wished.
    Urza's armor was in the way....
    Xantcha was about to release the armor when she thought 
of Ratepe. Suddenly there was nothing else except his face, 
laughing, scowling, watching her as she walked across the 
Medran plaza with a purse of gold on her belt. The 
sensations lasted less than a heartbeat, then Gix was back, 
but Xantcha hadn't needed a whole heartbeat to retreat from 
the destructive folly she'd been about to commit.
    "So, you found him," Gix said after he'd retreated from 
her mind. "Does he please you?"
    The red light continued to shine in her eye. Gix would 
pull another string, and this time there'd be no Ratepe, 
son of Mideah, to surprise the demon. Ratepe had given 
Xantcha a second chance, but she had to seize it. And 
Xantcha did, diving to her left, toward the corridor. 
Something hard and heavy struck her back. It threw her 
forward. She skidded face-first along the floor-stones, 
surrounded by red light, but the armor held. Xantcha 
scrambled to her feet and ran for her life. Demons weren't 
accustomed to defiance. They had no reflex response to stop 
a newt's desperate escape. Gix chased her, but he didn't 
catch her before she reached the spiral stairway.
    He howled and clawed the stones, but the passage was 
too tight, too narrow. A fireball engulfed Xantcha in an 
acid wind. She clung to the spine until it passed, then ran 
again, through the corridor, the cloister and into Avohir's 
sanctuary.
    Night had fallen on the plaza. Xantcha wasted no time 
asking herself where the day had gone. She released the 
armor, yawned out the sphere as soon as she dared, and 
headed up the coast to Russiore.
 
                        CHAPTER 19
 
    Urza and Xantcha 'walked away from Serra's realm not 
long after Xantcha gave him her heart. Xantcha was scarcely 
wiser about the imperfections of Serra's creation than 
she'd been when she'd walked into the palace, though it was 
clear that her presence, so close to the Cocoon, affected 
not only the realm as a whole but Sosinna's recovery from 
the Aegis bums. For Sosinna and Kenidiern, Xantcha would 
have accepted Serra's offer of transit to another, natural 
and inherently balanced world, but the offer was not made a 
second time. Urza accepted Serra's judgment. Even though he 
distrusted Xantcha as a Phyrexian, he'd been through too 
much with her to go on alone.
    He held Xantcha in his arms for that first terrible 
step across the chasm that separated a willfully created 
plane from the natural multiverse. She held a sealed chest 
nearly filled with gifts from Lady Serra. The gifts 
included a miniature cocoon that was the perfect size for 
Xantcha's amber heart.
    Their first natural world was a tiny, airless moon 
circling another world that appeared to be one vast blue-
green ocean, though Urza said otherwise. He made a chamber 
beneath the moon's surface and filled it with breathable 
air, his usual course in a place where he could survive 
indefinitely but Xantcha could not.
    "A terrible thing, this," he said, removing Xantcha's 
heart from the chest and placing it in a niche he had just 
finished. "I believe it contains everything they took away 
from you, even your soul."
    Despite his incursion into Phyrexia, and Lady Serra's 
assertion that Xantcha wholly and entirely differed from 
any born man or woman, Urza wouldn't surrender his belief 
that she'd been stolen from her parents and abominably 
transformed by her Phyrexian captors. She no longer 
bothered arguing the point with him. It was reassuring to 
be treated as he had always treated her.
    "I would destroy it, if I could find a way to return 
what it has taken. But that mystery does not solve itself 
easily, and I cannot devote my energies to it until I have 
determined the first plane of the Phyrexians and my 
vengeance has feasted on their entrails. You will 
understand that vengeance must come first."
    Xantcha nodded unnecessarily. Urza had not asked her a 
question. His concentration did not extend beyond his own 
thoughts, and he didn't notice her head moving.
    "Serra and I determined that the true number of natural 
planes in the multiverse cannot be counted, even by an 
immortal. If one started at the beginning, new planes would 
have emerged, and old planes would have disappeared before 
the count was concluded. This is not, however, an 
insurmountable problem, as we can be certain that the 
Phyrexians were not driven away from a freshly engendered 
plane, and while it would be a tragedy if their keystone 
plane had succumbed to entropy and reorganization, we need 
not blame ourselves for the loss. Thus, it is only 
necessary that I start somewhere and proceed with great 
precision until I reach the end, which, with the 
multiverse, is also the beginning. Do you understand what 
this means?'
    Xantcha nodded again, confident that Urza would 
continue explaining himself until her answer was truthful.
    "Good. I will, of necessity, 'walk lightly. I had 
thought of creating my own plane, since such planes are 
always accessible across the chasm, but I would have to 
create a plane in which both you and I could thrive, and 
Serra told me that such a creation would be quite difficult 
to manage. Black essence, which is to say your essence, and 
white, which is mine, are deeply opposed to each other and 
virtually impossible to balance in the microcosm of a 
created plane. Now, I do not shirk challenges, but I must 
avenge my brother before I allow myself the pleasures of 
pure research, thus I have put creation out of my mind. I 
will make do with bolt-holes such as this, which I will 
forge and relocate as I have need of them. There is an 
element of proximity in the multiverse, and eventually one 
is within an easy 'walk of a particular plane.
    "This should be an especial relief to you, Xantcha, 
since I will keep your heart in such a place where it 
cannot be lost or disturbed. It is also useful for me, 
since when I know where you are, I also know where your 
heart is, and contrariwise as well. And Serra has returned 
that crystal pendant I gave you while I was fleeing 
Phyrexia." He fished it out of one of the many boxes and 
draped it around Xantcha's neck. "You, I, and your heart 
and my pendant together make a single unit, a triangle, the 
strongest of angled structures. None of us can get lost."
    Triangles . . . triangles with four points? It had to 
be mathematics.... Of all the lessons Xantcha had been 
taught in the Fane of Flesh, mathematics had come hardest. 
She'd long since learned that she didn't need to understand 
the why of mathematics if she simply followed all the 
rules. If the rules turned her heart into one of a 
triangle's four parts, she'd keep quiet about it. And she'd 
survive with her heart in a niche on an airless moon the 
same way she'd survived the centuries when it had lain in 
the Phyrexian vault.
    "What do you need of me?" she asked, hoping to 
forestall any further discussion of unimaginable triangles.
    "You are good at sniffing out Phyrexians. When we reach 
a plane, I want you to explore it, as you would anyway, 
looking for infestations."
    "I'll need to use the sphere, is that all right?" The 
modifications remained a sore point between them. "You'll 
fix it so it isn't black anymore?"
    Urza ignored her questions. "For me, being somewhere 
quickly is easier than getting there slowly. I will search 
for the victors, the folk who drove the Phyrexians out and 
forced them to create Phyrexia."
    You will do what you want, Xantcha thought in the most 
private corner of her mind. Of course, so would she. Life 
was never better than when she was soaring the windstreams, 
chasing her curiosity, trading trinkets with strangers, and 
collecting the stories that born-folk told.
    "What do I do if I find a Phyrexian infestation?" She 
liked the word, her mind filled with possible ways to drive 
out an infestation.
    "You run away. The moment you are aware of Phyrexians, 
you hide yourself in the meeting place I'll point out to 
you, and you wait for me. I'll take no more chances with 
you and Phyrexians. You are vulnerable to them, Xantcha. 
It's no fault of yours-you're brave and good-spirited-but 
they tainted you. You are a bell goat and after you 
followed me to Phyrexia, my enemies were able to use you to 
find me-much as I will use your heart to find you."
    I never told you the Ineffable's name. That's how they 
found you. Xantcha thought, but said nothing. She'd made 
her choice to stay with Urza, even knowing his obsessions 
and madness. If he reordered his memories of the past to 
absolve himself of blame or responsibility, well-he'd done 
it before and he'd do it again. Xantcha believed in 
vengeance against Phyrexia and believed that Urza, with all 
his flaws, stood a better chance of achieving it than she.
    So they began their quest for the victors, the folk 
who'd driven the Phyrexians out of the natural multiverse. 
Urza set his mark on each world they visited, regardless of 
its hospitality. That way, he said, they would know when 
they'd come full circle. Xantcha wasn't certain about the 
full circle notion; it raised some of the same problems as 
a four-pointed triangle, but the marks kept them from 
accidentally exploring the same world twice.
    It was no surprise to Xantcha that they found very few 
hospitable worlds where the Phyrexians had not made an 
appearance. She'd been a dodger. She knew about the 
relentless explorations carried out by the searcher-
priests. The first few decades after leaving Serra's realm, 
she'd spent most of her time huddled up at whatever meeting 
place Urza designated, then gradually Urza had relaxed his 
rules. She could wander freely, provided she encountered no 
active Phyrexians.
    Thus began a long, golden period of wandering the 
multiverse. Every handful of worlds held one that was 
hospitable enough for Xantcha to exchange Urza's armor for 
the sphere. Every ten or twelve handfuls of hospitable 
worlds revealed one that was interesting, at least to 
Xantcha. She became the tourist who delighted in minor 
variations, while Urza was on a single-minded quest.
    "They were here," he said when they rejoined each 
other. They met in a white stone grotto of a world where 
elves were the dominant species and civilization was 
measured by forests, not cities.
    "I know," Xantcha agreed, having found the spoor of two 
searcher expeditions and heard tales of demons with 
glistening, metallic skin in several languages. "Searchers 
came through a good long time ago. They're remembered as 
demons and the bringers of chaos. They came through again, 
maybe a thousand local years ago, but only in a few places. 
They collected beasts both times, I think. There's metal 
here, but no mines. The searchers will come back again. 
They're waiting for the elves to do the hard work of 
opening the ground."
    Urza nodded though he wasn't happy. "How did you learn 
such things? There are no centers of learning here, few 
records in the ground or above it. I have found it most 
frustrating!"
    "I talk to everyone, Urza. I trade with them," she 
explained, handing Urza a sack filled with trinkets and 
treasures, her profits from three seasons' wandering. He'd 
take them to the bolt-hole where he kept her heart. 
"Everyone has a story,"
    "A story, Xantcha-what I want is the truth! The hard-
edged truth."
    She squared her shoulders. "The truth is, this is not 
the victor's world. I could have told you that before the 
sun set twice."
    "And how could you have done that?"
    "No one here knows a word for war."
    Urza stiffened. A planeswalker didn't have to listen 
with his ears. He could skim thought and meaning directly 
off the surface of another mind and drink down a new 
language like water. As a result, Urza seldom paid 
attention to the actual words he heard or spoke. He handled 
surprise poorly, embarrassment, worse. His breathing 
stopped, and his eyes shed their mortal illusion.
    "I have encountered a new world," he snapped after a 
pensive moment. Equilor. His lips hadn't moved.
    Xantcha didn't disbelieve him, although Equilor wasn't 
a word that she remembered hearing on this or any other 
world. "Is it a name?" she asked cautiously.
    "An old name. The oldest name. The farthest plane. It 
belongs to a plane on the edge of time."
    "Another created world, like Phyrexia or Serra's 
realm?"
    "No, I think not. I hope not."
    She'd wager, if she'd ever been the wagering sort, that 
Urza hadn't learned of Equilor from the elves of the forest 
world but had heard of it years ago and forgotten it until 
just now when she'd challenged him.
    They set out at once, with no more preparation than 
Urza made for any between-worlds journey. He explained that 
preparation and, especially, directions weren't important. 
'Walking the between-worlds wasn't like walking down a 
path. There was no north or south, left or right, only the 
background glow of all the planes that were and, rising out 
of the glow, a sense of those planes that a 'walker could 
reach in a single stride. By choosing the faintest of the 
rising planes at each step, Urza insisted they would in 
time arrive at Equilor, the plane on the edge of time.
    Xantcha couldn't imagine a place where direction didn't 
matter, but then, for her the between-worlds remained as 
hostile as it had been the first time Urza dragged her 
through it. For her the between-worlds was a changeless 
place of paradox and sheer terror.
    At first, the only evidence she had that Urza was doing 
anything different was indirect. Her armor crumbled, the 
instant Urza released her, in the air of the next, new 
world. There was breathable air in each new world they 
'walked to, as if he'd at last given up the notion that the 
Phyrexians could have begun on a world without air. And 
Urza himself was exhausted when they arrived. He would go 
into the ground and sleep as much as a local year while she 
explored.
    They were some thirty worlds beyond the elven forest 
world when Urza announced, as Xantcha shook herself free of 
flaking armor:
    "Here you do not need to look for Phyrexians. Here we 
will find others of my kind."
    Urza didn't mean that he'd brought her to Dominaria. 
Every so often, he journeyed alone to the brink of his 
birth-world to assure himself that it remained safe within 
the Shard they'd discovered long ago. Urza meant, instead, 
that he'd broken an age-old habit and set them down on a 
plane where other 'walkers congregated.
    He'd never insinuated that he was unique, at least as 
far as 'walking between-worlds. Serra was a 'walker and so, 
Xantcha suspected, had been the Ineffable. But Urza had 
avoided other 'walkers until they came to the abandoned 
world he called Gastal.
    "Be wary," he warned Xantcha. "I do not trust them. 
Without a plane to bind them, 'walkers forget what they 
were. They become predators, unless they go mad."
    Knowing Urza fell in the latter category, Xantcha 
stayed carefully in his shadow as they approached a small, 
fanciful, and entirely illusory pavilion standing by itself 
on a barren, twilight plain, but the three men and two 
women they met there seemed unthreatening. They knew Urza-
or knew of him-and welcomed him as a prodigal brother, 
though Xantcha couldn't actually follow their conversation: 
planeswalkers conversed directly in one another's minds.
    But Urza was not the only 'walker who tempered his 
solitary life with a more ordinary companion. Outside the 
pavilion, Xantcha met two other women, one of them a blind 
dwarf, who braved the between-worlds on a 'walker's arm. 
Throughout the balmy night, the three of them sought a 
common language through which to share experience and 
advice. By dawn they'd made progress in a Creole that was 
mixed mostly from elven dialects from a hundred or more 
worlds. Xantcha had just pieced together that Varrastu, a 
dwarf, had heard of Phyrexia when Urza emerged to say it 
was time to move on.
    Xantcha rose reluctantly. "Varrastu said that she and 
Manatar-qua have crossed swords with folk made from flesh 
and metal-"
    Words failed as a second sun, yellowish-green in color, 
loomed suddenly high overhead. The air exploded as it 
hurtled toward them. Xantcha had the wit to be frightened 
but hadn't begun to guess why or to yawn Urza's armor from 
the cyst, when the pavilion burst into screaming flames, 
and Urza seized her against his chest. He pulled her 
between-worlds. Without the armor to protect her, she was 
bleeding and gasping when they re-emerged.
    Urza laid her on the ground then cradled her face in 
his hands. "Don't go," he whispered.
    It seemed an incongruous request. Xantcha wasn't about 
to go anywhere. The between-worlds had battered her to 
exhaustion. Her body seemed to have already fallen asleep. 
She wanted only to close her eyes and join it.
    "No!" Urza pinched her cheeks. "Stay awake! Stay with 
me!"
    Power like fire or countless sharp needles swirled 
around her. Xantcha fought feebly to escape the pain. She 
pleaded with him to release her.
    "Live!" he shouted. "I won't let you die now."
    Death would have been preferable to the torture flowing 
from Urza's fingers, but Xantcha hadn't the strength to 
resist his will. Mote by mote, he healed her and dragged 
her back from the brink.
    "Sleep now, if you wish."
    His hand passed over her eyes. For an instant, there 
was darkness and oblivion, then there was light, and 
Xantcha was herself again. She exhaled a pent-up breath and 
sat up.
    "I don't know what came over me."
    "Death," Urza said calmly. "I nearly lost you."
    She remembered the yellow-green sun. "We must go back, 
Varrastu-Manatarqua-"
    "Crossed swords with the Phyrexians. Yes. Manatarqua 
was the pavilion. She died on Gastal."
    A shudder raced down Xantcha's spine. There was more 
that Urza wasn't saying. "How long ago?"
    "In the time of this plane, nearly two years."
    Xantcha noticed her surroundings: a bare-walled chamber 
with a window but not a door. She noticed herself. Her skin 
was white. It cracked and flaked when she moved, as if her 
armor clung in dead layers around her. Her hair, which she 
always hacked short around her face, hung below her 
shoulders. "Two years," she repeated, needing to say the 
words herself to make them true in her mind. "Long years?"
    "Very long," Urza assured her. "You've recovered. I 
never doubted that you would, if I stayed beside you. 
You'll be hungry soon. I'll get food now. Tomorrow or the 
next day we'll move on toward Equilor."
    Already Xantcha felt her stomach churning to life-after 
two empty years. Food would be nice, but there was another 
question: "At Gastal, Manatarqua-you said she 'was the 
pavilion." Do you mean that she was Phyrexian and that you 
slew her?"
    "No, Manatarqua was a 'walker like myself, but much 
younger. I have no idea why she presented herself as an 
object. I didn't ask, it was her choice. Perhaps she hoped 
to hide from her enemies."
    "Phyrexians?"
    "Other planeswalkers. I told you, they-we-can become 
predatory, especially toward the newly sparked. I was 
nearly taken myself in the beginning-Meshuvel was her name. 
She was no threat to me. My eyes reveal sights no other 
'walker can see. Until Serra, I avoided my own kind. They 
had no part to play in my quest for vengeance. I'd been 
thinking about 'walkers since leaving Serra's realm. I 
thought I might need someone more like myself."
    "But they died."
    "Manatarqua died. I suspect the others escaped 
unharmed, as I did. They prey on the young and the mortal 
because a mature 'walker is no easy target. But I had made 
up my mind almost from the start. I don't need another 
"walker. I need you. To finally realize that and then feel 
you die so soon afterward-it was almost enough to make me 
worship the fickle gods."
    Xantcha imagined Urza on his knees or in a temple. She 
closed her eyes and laughed. He was gone when she reopened 
them, and she was too stiff yet to climb through the 
window. Her saner self insisted that Urza wouldn't abandon 
her, not after sitting beside her for two years, not after 
what he'd just said about needing her. Then this world's 
sun passed beyond the window. Sanity's voice grew weaker as 
shadows lengthened. Of all the ways Xantcha knew to die, 
starvation was among the worst. She had dragged herself to 
the window and was hauling herself over the sill when she 
felt a breeze at her back. The breeze was thick with fresh 
bread, roasted meat, and fruit. Urza had returned.
    He called the meal a celebration and ate with her, at 
least until a more ordinary sort of tiredness drove Xantcha 
back to the bed where she'd lain for so long. She awoke 
with the sun. There was a door beside the window, more food 
and, somewhere beyond the sun, near the edge of time, a 
world called Equilor.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Later, after they'd gotten to Dominaria, when Xantcha 
sorted through her memories, the largest pile belonged to 
the years they had searched for Equilor. Every season, for 
much more than a thousand Dominarian years, she and Urza 
wandered the multi-verse, taking other worlds' measure. 
There were surprises and excitement, mostly of the minor 
variety. After Serra's realm, Phyrexia seemed to lose 
interest in them-or, at least, had lost their trail. Though 
they sometimes found evidence of searcher-priests and 
excavations. Eventually, everything they found was long 
abandoned.
    "I'm headed in the right direction," Urza would say 
whenever they came upon eroded ruins no one else would have 
noticed. "I'm headed toward the world that cast them out."
    Xantcha was never so confident, but she never 
understood how Urza found anything in the between-worlds, 
much less how he distinguished hospitable worlds from 
inhospitable ones, near from far. She was content to follow 
a path that led endlessly away from the Phyrexia she knew 
and toward the vengeance that seemed equally distant. Until 
the day when they came to a quiet, twilight world.
    "The edge of time itself," Urza said as he released 
Xantcha's wrists.
    She shed her armor and filled her lungs with air that 
was unlike any other. "Old," she said after a few moments. 
"It's as if everything's finished-not dead, just done 
growing and changing. Even the mountains are smoothed down, 
like they've been standing too long, but nothing's come to 
replace them." She gestured toward the great, dark lump 
that dominated the landscape like a risen loaf of bread. 
"Somehow, I expected an edge to have sharp angles."
    Urza nodded. "I expected a plane where everything had 
been put to use, not like this, neglected and left fallow."
    Yet not completely fallow. As twilight deepened, lights 
winked open near the solitary mountain. There was a road, 
too: a ribbon of worn gray stone, cut in chevrons and 
fitted so precisely that not a blade of grass grew between 
them. Urza insisted he had no advance idea of what a new 
plane was like, no way at all of selecting the exact place 
where his feet would touch the ground, yet, more often than 
not, he 'walked out of the between-worlds in sight of a 
road and a town.
    They began to travel down the road.
    A carpet of bats took flight from the mountain, passing 
directly over their heads. When their shrill chirping had 
subsided, other noises punctuated the night: howls, growls 
and a bird with a sweet, yet mournful song. Stars appeared, 
unfamiliar, of course, and scattered sparsely across the 
clear, black sky. No moon outshone them, but it was the 
nature of moons to produce moonless nights now and again. 
What surprised Xantcha was the scarcity of stars, as if 
time were stars and the black sky were itself the edge of 
time.
    "A strange place," Xantcha decided as they strode down 
the road. "Not ominous or inhospitable, but filled with 
secrets."
    "So long as one of them is Phyrexia, I won't care about 
the rest."
    The light came from cobweb globes hovering above the 
road and the three-score graceful houses of an unfortified 
town. Urza lifted himself into the air to examine them and 
reported solemnly that he had not a clue to their 
construction or operation.
    "They simply are," he said, "and my instinct is to 
leave them alone."
    Xantcha smiled to herself. If that was Urza's instinct 
then whatever the globes were, they weren't simple.
    A man came out to meet them. He appeared ordinary 
enough, though Xantcha understood how deceptive an ordinary 
appearance could be, and it bothered her that she hadn't 
noticed him leave any one of the nearby houses, hadn't 
noticed him at all until he was some fifty paces ahead and 
walking toward them. He wore a knee-length robe over loose 
trousers, both woven from a pale, lightweight fiber that 
rippled as he moved and sparkled as if it were shot with 
silver. His hair and beard were dark auburn in the globe 
light and neatly trimmed. A few wrinkles creased the outer 
corners of his eyes. Xantcha placed him in the prime of 
mortal life, but she'd place Urza there, too.
    "Welcome, Urza," the stranger said. "Welcome to 
Equilor. We've been waiting for you."
 
                        CHAPTER 20
 
    Xantcha had understood every word the auburn-haired man 
had said, an unprecedented happening on a new world. She 
dug deep into her memory trying to recognize the language 
and missed the obvious: the stranger spoke Argivian, the 
sounds of Urza's long-lost boyhood and of her newtish 
dreams, the foundation of the argot she and Urza spoke to 
each other. But if this were Dom-inaria, then Urza would 
have recognized the stars, and if the stranger were another 
'walker with the power to absorb languages without time or 
effort, then why had he said, We've been waiting?
    The stranger touched his forehead, lips, and heart 
before embracing Urza, cheek against cheek. Urza bent into 
the gesture, as he would not have done if he were 
suspicious.
    "And you're . . . Xantcha."
    The stranger turned his attention to her. He'd 
hesitated before stating her name. Taking it from her mind? 
Not unless he were much better at such things than Urza 
was; she'd felt no violation. Once again the stranger 
touched himself three times before embracing her exactly as 
he'd embraced Urza. His hands were warm, with the texture 
of flesh and bone. His breath was warm, too, and faintly 
redolent of onions.
    "Waiting for us?" Urza demanded before asking the 
stranger's name or any other pleasantry. "Before sunset I 
was elsewhere, very much elsewhere. And until now, I did 
not know for certain that I had found the place I have been 
seeking for so long."
    "Yes, waiting," the stranger insisted, keeping one hand 
beneath Xantcha's elbow and guiding Urza toward one of the 
houses with the other. "You 'walk the planes. We have been 
aware of your approach for quite some time now. It is good 
to have you here at last."
    Xantcha glanced behind the stranger's shoulders. Urza 
had devised a code, simple hand and facial movements for 
moments when they were among mind-skimmers. She made the 
sign for danger and received the sign for negation in 
response. Urza wasn't worried as the stranger led them 
through a simple stone-built gate and into a tall, open-
roofed atrium.
    There were others in the atrium, a woman at an open 
hearth, stirring a pot of stew that was the source of the 
onions Xantcha had smelled earlier, two other women and a 
man, all adults, all individuals, yet bound by a familial 
resemblance. An ancient sat in a wicker chair-wrinkled, 
toothless, and nearly bald. Xantcha couldn't guess if she 
beheld a man or a woman. Beyond the ancient, in another 
atrium, two half-grown children dangled strings for a 
litter of kittens, while a round-faced toddling child 
watched her from behind the banister at the top of a 
stairway.
    Of them all, only the toddler betrayed even a faint 
distrust of uninvited guests. Where moments earlier Xantcha 
had warned Urza of danger, she now began to wonder why the 
household seemed so unconcerned. Didn't they see her knives 
and sword? Had they no idea what a 'walker could do-
especially a 'walker named Urza?
    "There is a portion for you," the hearth-side woman 
said specifically to Xantcha, as she ladled out a solitary 
bowl and set it on the table that ran the length of the 
atrium. Like the man who'd met them on the road, she spoke 
Argivian, but with a faint accent. "You must be hungry 
after your journey here."
    Xantcha was hungry. She caught Urza's eyes again and 
passed the general sign that asked, What should I do?
    "Eat," he said. "The food smells delicious."
    But a second bowl wasn't offered-as if they knew a 
'walker never needed to eat.
    Xantcha sat in a white chair at a white table, eating 
stew from a white bowl. Everything that could have had a 
chosen color, including the floors and the walls, was white 
and sparkling clean. Except for the spoon in the bowl. It 
was plain wood, rubbed until it was satin smooth. She used 
it self-consciously, afraid she'd dribble and embarrass 
herself-both distinct possibilities, distracted as she was 
by conversations between Urza and the others that she 
couldn't quite overhear.
    The stew was plain but tasty. If there was time, she'd 
like to see the garden where they grew their vegetables and 
the fields where they harvested their grain. It was a 
meatless stew-somehow that didn't surprise her-with egg 
drizzled in the broth, and pale chunks, like cubes of soft 
cheese, a bit smaller than her thumb, taking the place of 
meat. The chunks had the texture of soft cheese, but not 
the taste; indeed, they had no taste that Xantcha could 
discern, and she was tempted to leave them in the bowl 
until the woman asked her if the meal was pleasing to a 
wanderer's palate.
    The auburn-haired man's name was Romom, the cook was 
Tessu, the other names left no impression in Xantcha's 
mind, save for Brya, the toddler at the top of the stairs. 
When Xantcha had finished her second bowl of stew and a mug 
of excellent cider, Tessu suggested a hot bath in an open, 
steaming pool. Xantcha had no wish to display her newt's 
undifferentiated flesh before strangers and declined the 
offer. Tessu suggested sleep in a room of her own-
    "Facing the mountain."
    It was a privilege of some sort, but Xantcha declined a 
second time. She pushed away from the spotless white table 
and took a cautious stride toward the pillow-sitting knot 
of folk gathered around Urza. Opposition never 
materialized. The family made room for her between the two 
women whose names Xantcha couldn't remember. Urza gave her 
the finger sign for silence. The family discussed stars and 
myths. They used unfamiliar names, but all the other words 
were accented Argivian with only a few lapses of syntax or 
vocabulary. It wasn't their native language, yet they'd all 
learned it well-enough for an esoteric conversation that 
couldn't, in any meaningful sense, include her or Urza.
    Xantcha twisted her fingers into an open question, and 
Urza replied with the sign for silence. Silence wasn't 
difficult for Xantcha, unless it was imposed. She fidgeted 
and considered joining the youngsters still playing with 
the kittens until Tessu shuttled them upstairs. The 
conversation began to flag and for the first time since 
they'd entered the austerely decorated atrium, the air 
charged with anticipation. Even at the edge of time there 
were, apparently, conversations that could be held only 
after the children had gone to bed.
    Tessu and Romom together brought the ancient to what 
had been Romom's place on Urza's right. Then everyone 
shuffled about to make room for the pair-who Xantcha had 
decided were husband and wife, if not lord and lady-on the 
opposite side of the circle.
    "You have questions," the ancient said. The voice gave 
no clues to the grizzled figure's sex, but the accent was 
thick. Xantcha had to listen closely to distinguish the 
words. "No one comes to Equilor without questions."
    Urza made two signs, one with each hand, silence and 
observe, before he said, "I have come to learn my enemies' 
weakness."
    The two men exchanged glances, one triumphant, an 
ongoing dispute settled at last. Against all reason, these 
folk had been expecting them, exactly them: Urza from 
Argive and a companion who'd been glad of a hot meal at the 
end of a long day. But they hadn't known for certain why, 
and that made less sense. If you knew Urza well enough to 
know his name and where he was headed, then surely you knew 
what had driven him through the multiverse to Equilor.
    The men, however, said nothing. Like Xantcha, they 
seemed relegated to silence, waiting for the ancient to 
speak again.
    "Equilor is not your enemy. Equilor has no enemies. If 
you were an enemy of Equilor, you would not have found us."
    Another created plane like Phyrexia and Serra's realm, 
accessible only across a fathomless chasm-which Urza hadn't 
mentioned?
    "I am a seeker, nothing more," Urza countered, as 
formal and constrained as Xantcha had ever heard him. "I 
sensed no defenses as I 'walked."
    "We would not intimidate our enemies, Urza. We would 
not encourage them to test their courage. We knew you were 
a seeker. We permitted you to find what you sought. The 
elders will see you."
    By which the ancient implied that he, or she, was not 
one of the elders. Perhaps the term was an honorific, not 
dependent on age. Xantcha would have liked to ask an 
impertinent question or two, but Urza's fingers remained 
loosely in their silence and observe positions.
    "And I will ask them about Phyrexia. Have you heard of 
it?"
    There was considerable movement in the circle. Xantcha 
couldn't observe it all, but Phyrexia was not unknown to 
the household.
    The ancient said one word, "Misguided," which seemed 
sufficient to everyone but Urza and Xantcha.
    "More than misguided," Urza sputtered. "They are a 
force of abomination, of destruction. They have set 
themselves against my plane, and I have sworn vengeance 
against them in the name of my brother, my people, and the 
Thran."
    That word, "Thran," also brought an exchange of 
glances, less profound than what had followed Phyrexia.
    "Misguided," the ancient repeated. "Foolish and doomed. 
The elders will tell you more."
    "So, you know of them! I'm convinced that they were 
banished from their natal plane before they created 
Phyrexia. I am looking for that plane. If it is not 
Equilor, I hope that you can tell me where it is. I have 
heard that whatever is known in the multiverse is known to 
Equilor."
    The ancient nodded. "The ones you seek have never come 
to Equilor. They are young, as you are young. Youth does 
not often come to Equilor."
    "They fought the Thran over six thousand of my years 
ago, and I myself have walked the planes for over two 
millennia."
    The ancient fired a question to Romom in a language 
Xantcha couldn't understand.
    Romom replied, in Argivian, "Shorter, Pakuya, by at 
least a third."
    "You are old, Urza, for a young man, but compared to 
Equilor, you are scarcely weaned from your mother's breast. 
In Equilor, we began our search for enlightenment a hundred 
millennia ago. Do not wonder, then, that you could not see 
our defenses as you passed through them."
    "You will think differently when the Phyrexians 
arrive!"
    "They are a small folk with small ambitions, smaller 
dreams. We have nothing to offer them. Perhaps we were 
wrong about you."
    The ancient added something short and decisive in the 
other language. Watching Urza as closely as she watched the 
household, Xantcha realized that Urza couldn't skim the 
thoughts of these deceptively simple folk.
    "It is late," Tessu said, putting a polite, yet 
unmistakable end to the discussion. She rose to her feet. 
Romom rose beside her. "Time to rest and sleep. The sun 
will rise."
    The rest of the household stood and bowed their heads 
as Romom and Tessu helped the ancient from the atrium. 
Moments later, Urza and Xantcha were alone.
    "This is the place!" Urza said directly in her mind.
    "The old one said not."
    "She is testing us. Tomorrow, when I meet with these 
elders, I will have what I have long wished to learn."
    In her private thoughts, Xantcha wondered how Urza knew 
the ancient was a woman, then chided herself for thinking 
he could be right about such a small thing when he seemed 
so wrong about the rest. The ancient had talked to Urza as 
Urza often talked to her, but he hadn't noticed the 
slights.
    "They have secrets," Xantcha warned but no reply formed 
in her mind, and she couldn't know if Urza had retrieved 
her thought.
    Tessu and Romom returned. Romom said there was a 
special chamber where those who would speak to the elders 
waited for the sun to rise. For Xantcha, who was just as 
glad not be included, there was a narrow bedchamber at the 
end of a cloistered corridor, a change of clothes, and a 
worried question:
    "You will bathe before sunrise?"
    She answered in the same tone, "If I may bathe 
unobserved?"
    "The mountain will see you."
    There were no roofs over any of the chambers. Xantcha 
wondered what they did when it rained, but, "The mountain 
is not a problem."
    "You have customs that inhibit you?"
    Xantcha nodded. If that explanation would satisfy 
Tessu, she'd provide no other.
    "I will not interfere, but I cannot sleep until you 
have bathed."
    "Your customs?"
    Tessu nodded, and with her clean clothes under her arm 
Xantcha followed her host to the dark and quiet atrium. If 
Tessu failed to contain her curiosity, Xantcha was none the 
wiser. As smooth and hairless as the day she crawled out of 
her vat, Xantcha eased herself into the starlit, steaming 
pool. A natural hot spring kept the water pleasantly warm. 
A gutter-white, of course, and elegantly simple-carried the 
overflow away. She'd scrubbed herself clean in a matter of 
moments and, knowing that Tessu waited in the atrium, 
should have toweled herself off immediately, but the 
mountain was watching her and she watched back.
    It had many eyes-Xantcha lost count at thirty-three-
and, remembering the bats, the eyes were probably nothing 
more than caves, still, the sense of observation was 
inescapable. After staring so intently at shades of black 
and darkness, Xantcha thought she saw flickering lights in 
some of the cave eyes, thought the lights formed a rippling 
web across the mountain. Xantcha thought a number of things 
until she realized she was standing naked beside the pool, 
at which point all her thoughts shattered and vanished. She 
grabbed her clothes, both clean and filthy, and retreated 
into the atrium.
    "You are unwell?" Tessu asked discreetly from the 
shadows as Xantcha wrestled with unfamiliar clasps and 
plackets.
    "It did see me."
    Tessu failed to repress a chuckle. "They will not harm 
you, Xantcha."
    Urza was right. They were being tested. Xantcha hoped 
she had passed.
    Xantcha slept well and awoke to the unmistakable sounds 
of children being quiet outside her door. They were not so 
fluent in Argivian as the household's adult members, but 
the tallest of the three boys-who understandably took 
himself to be older than Xantcha and therefore entitled to 
give her orders-made it clear that sunrise was coming and 
it was time for guests to come outside and join the family 
in its morning rituals.
    The eastern horizon had barely begun to brighten when 
Xantcha settled into what was evidently a place of honor 
between Tessu and the ancient. They faced west toward the 
mountain, which was as monolithic black in the pre-dawn 
light as it was during Xantcha's bath. There were no 
prayers, a relief, and no Urza or Romom or Brya, either. 
Brya's absence could be explained by the motionless 
serenity with which the household awaited the coming of 
daylight. No toddler could sit so still for so long.
    Xantcha herself was challenged by the discipline. Her 
mind ached with unasked questions, her nose itched, then 
her toes, and the nearly unreachable spot between her 
shoulder blades. She was ready to explode when light struck 
the mountain's rounded crest. As sunrises went, it was not 
spectacular. The air was clear. There were no clouds 
anywhere to add contrast or movement to the surprisingly 
slow progression of color and light on the mountainside.
    But that, Xantcha realized, was Equilor's mystery and 
revelation. Those who dwelt at the edge of time had gone 
past a need for the spectacular; they'd learned to 
appreciate the subtlest differences. They'd conquered 
boredom even more effectively than the perfect folk of 
Serra's realm. They could wait forever and a day, which 
Xantcha supposed was a considerable accomplishment, though 
nothing she wished to emulate.
    Find what you're looking for! she urged the absent 
Urza, moments before the dawn revealed two white-clad 
figures moving among the mountain's many caves.
    The ancient rapped Xantcha sharply on the back. "Pay 
attention! Watch close!"
    Guessing that some rite of choosing or choice was about 
to take place, Xantcha did her best to follow the ancient's 
advice, but it proved impossible. Brilliant lights suddenly 
began to flash from the cave mouths, as if each contained a 
mirror. She blinked rapidly and to no useful effect. Each 
cave mouth had its own rhythm, no matter how Xantcha tried, 
her eyes were quickly, painfully blinded by reflected 
sunlight.
    "You'll learn," the ancient chortled, while tears ran 
down Xantcha's cheeks.
    The dazzle ended.
    Tessu embraced Xantcha with a hearty "Good morning" and 
pulled her to her feet before releasing her. Xantcha had 
scarcely dried her face on her sleeve before the rest of 
the household followed Tessu's example and greeted her with 
the same embrace they used with one another. She had never 
been so carefully included in a family gathering, and 
seldom felt so out of place. Her vision was still awash in 
purple and green blobs when she and Tessu were alone in the 
atrium.
    "You aren't used to it yet," Tessu said gently. "You'll 
learn."
    "That's what the ancient said."
    "Ancient? Oh, Pakuya. She'll go up the mountain 
herself, I think, after you and Urza leave. We've been 
waiting quite a long time, even for us, for you to arrive."
    The certainty in Tessu's voice was an unexpected 
relief. "Urza's in one of the caves, right?"
    "Keodoz, I think. Romom will say for certain when he 
returns this afternoon."
    Keodoz, the name of the cave or the elder who occupied 
it? Xantcha stifled idle curiosity in favor of a more 
important question: "Do you know when Urza will return?"
    "Tomorrow or the next day. Whenever he and Keodoz have 
finished."
    It was nearly twenty days before neighbors spotted a 
white-robed man coming down the mountain. By then Xantcha 
knew that there was no difference between the cave and the 
elder-or more accurately, elders-who dwelt within it. 
Romom, Tessu, and the rest of the Equilor community-and 
there was only the one community at the edge of time-lived 
their mortal lives in expectation of the day when they'd 
climb the mountain one last time to merge with their 
ancestors.
    Despite their focus on their cave-dwelling ancestors, 
the folk of Equilor weren't a morbid people. They laughed 
with one another, loved their children, and took genuine 
delight in the small events of daily life. They argued, 
held grudges, and gossiped among themselves and about the 
elders, who, despite their collective spirits, were not 
without individual foibles. Keodoz, Xantcha learned, was 
known to be long-winded and supremely self-confident. As 
Urza's time in the caves had lengthened, the household 
began to joke that Keodoz had found a soulmate-a notion 
that distressed Xantcha. Idyllic ways notwithstanding, 
Equilor was not a place where she wanted to spend eternity.
    When she heard that Urza had been spotted, she left the 
house at once and jogged along the stone road until she met 
up with him.
    "Did you get your answers ?" she asked, adding, "I can 
be ready to leave before sundown."
    "I have only scratched the surface, Xantcha. We are 
young compared to them. We know so little, and they have 
been collecting knowledge for so long. A thousand years 
wouldn't be enough time. Ten thousand, even a hundred 
thousand wouldn't be too much. You cannot imagine what the 
elders know."
    Of course she couldn't imagine. She was Phyrexian. 
"Remember why we came here. What about vengeance? Your 
brother? Dominaria? Phyrexia!"
    He grabbed her and lifted her into the air. "Keodoz 
knows so much, Xantcha! Do you remember, after we left 
Phyrexia, how I was unable to return to Dominaria? I said 
it was as if the portion of the multiverse that held 
Dominaria had been squeezed and sealed away from the rest. 
I was right, Xantcha. Not only was I right, but I was the 
one who had squeezed and twisted it when I emptied the 
sylex bowl! It wasn't evident at first-well, it was. 
Dominaria was cooler when I left, but I didn't understand 
how the two were related. But it was in my mind, when I 
used the sylex, to protect my home for all time, and the 
bowl's power was so great that my wish was granted. No 
artifact device, nor planeswalker's will, can breach the 
Shard that the sylex created. The elders here at Equilor 
could not breach it."
    "You turned your home into Phy- " Xantcha caught 
herself before she finished the fatal word and substituted, 
"Serra's realm?" instead.
    "Better, Xantcha. Much better! The Shard is more than a 
chasm, and Dominaria is an entire nexus of planes, all 
natural and balanced. Dominaria is safe, and I saved it 
with the sylex."
    "But the Phyrexians? Phyrexia? The Ineffable?"
    "They are doomed, Xantcha. Accidents and anomalies, not 
worth the effort of destroying them, now that I am sure 
Dominaria is safe. There are more important questions, 
Xantcha. I see that now. I've found my place. Equilor is 
where I belong. Keodoz and the others have so much 
knowledge, but they've done nothing with it. Look around 
us, Xantcha. These folk need leadership- vision!-and I will 
give it to them. When I am finished, Equilor will be the 
jewel of the multiverse."
    Xantcha thought of Tessu and Romom waiting to merge 
with all their ancestors. She wriggled free and said, 
cautiously, "I don't think that's what anyone here wants."
    "They have not dreamed with me, Xantcha. Keodoz has 
only begun to dream with me. It will take time, but we have 
time. Equilor has time. They are not immortal, but they 
might as well be. Did you know that if Brya, Romom's 
youngest, had been born where I was born, she would be an 
old woman in her eighties ?"
    Xantcha hadn't known and wasn't comfortable with the 
knowledge. Urza, however, was radiant, as intoxicated by 
his ambitions as she would have been by a jug of wine. 
"Urza, You haven't found your place," she said, retreating 
into the grass. "You've lost it. We came here to find the 
first home for the
    Phyrexians. They've never been here, and if the elders 
don't know where they're from, then we should leave . . . 
soon."
    "Nonsense!" Urza retorted and started walking toward 
the white houses.
    Nonsense was also the first word out of Pakuya's 
toothless mouth when Urza regaled the household with his 
notions over supper. Tessu, Romom, and the others were too 
polite-or perhaps too astonished-to say anything until Urza 
had 'walked back to Keodoz's cave, and then they spoke in 
their own language. Xantcha had learned only a few words of 
Equiloran-she suspected they spoke her Argivian dialect 
precisely to keep their own language a mystery-but she 
didn't need a translator to catch that they were unhappy 
with Urza's plans or to decide that their politeness masked 
a strong, even rigid, culture.
    Tessu confirmed Xantcha's suspicions. "It might be 
best," she said in a supremely mild tone, "if you spoke 
with Urza."
    "I've already told him but Urza doesn't listen to me 
unless I'm telling him what he wants to hear. If I were 
you, I'd send someone up the mountain to talk with Keodoz."
    "Keodoz is not much for listening."
    "Then we've got a problem."
    "No, Xantcha, Urza's got a problem, because the other 
elders will get Keodoz's attention, sooner or later."
    "Is Urza in danger? I mean... would you... would they?" 
Tessu was such a calm, rational woman that Xantcha had 
difficulty getting her question out, though she knew from 
other worlds that the most ruthless folk she'd ever met 
were invariably calm and rational.
    "Those who go up the mountain, do not always come 
down," Tessu said simply.
    "Urza's a 'walker, I've seen him melt mountains with 
his eyes."
    "Not here."
    Xantcha absorbed that in silence. "I'll talk to Urza, 
the next time he comes down ... assuming he comes back 
down."
    "Assuming," Tessu agreed.
    Urza did return to the white houses after forty days in 
Keodoz's cave. He summoned the entire community and made 
the air shimmer with visions of artifacts and cities. 
Xantcha had learned a bit more Equiloran by then. When she 
spoke to Urza afterward, her concerns were real.
    "They're not interested. They say they've put greatness 
behind them and they're angry with Romom and Tessu for 
letting you stay with them so long. They say something's 
got to be done."
    "Of course something's got to be done! And I'll get 
Keodoz to do it. He's on the brink. He's been on the brink 
for days now. I left him alone to get his thoughts in 
order. They're a collective mind, you know, each elder 
separately and all the elders together. They've become 
stagnant, but I'm getting them moving again. Once I get 
Keodoz persuaded, he'll give the sign to the others, and 
the dam will burst. You'll see."
    "Tessu said, those who go up the mountain don't always 
return. Be careful, Urza. These people have power."
    "Tessu and Romom! Forget Tessu and Romom, they might as 
well be blind. Yes, they've got power. All Equilor had 
undreamed power, but they turned their back on power and 
they've forgotten how to use it. Even Keodoz. I'm going to 
show them what greatness truly is!"
    Xantcha walked away wondering if Tessu had enough power 
to take her between-worlds once Urza stayed in the 
mountains with Keodoz. The adults were missing, though, and 
the children wouldn't meet Xantcha's eyes when she asked 
where they'd gone, not even eighty-year-old Brya. Xantcha 
went outside, to the place where they gathered to watch 
sunrise light the mountain each morning. The skies were 
clear. It had rained just four times since she'd arrived-
torrential downpours that soaked everything and recharged 
the cisterns. During the storms they'd taken shelter in the 
underground larders. She'd thought the adult community 
might be meeting there, or outside one of the other houses. 
Xantcha listened closely for conversation but heard 
nothing, and though she'd never heard or seen anything to 
suggest that the gardens and fields beyond the white houses 
were dangerous at night, she decided she was safest near 
the children.
    Tessu's children took harmless advantage of her 
absence. They raided the larder, lured the kittens onto the 
forbidden cushions and, one by one, fell asleep away from 
their beds. Xantcha guessed they'd slipped into the long 
hours between midnight and dawn. She decided to try another 
conversation with Urza, but he was gone, 'walked back to 
Keodoz, most likely. She sensed that the Equilorans didn't 
approve of skipping between-worlds to get from the house to 
the cave. They didn't say anything, though; they weren't 
inclined toward warnings or ultimatums. Not that either 
would have mattered with Urza.
    Xantcha went outside again. She paced and stared at the 
mountain, then paced some more, stared some more. The sky 
brightened: dawn, at last. The adults would come back for 
the sunrise. She'd talk to Tessu. They'd work something 
out.
    But the brightening wasn't dawn. The new light came 
from a single point overhead, a star, Xantcha thought-there 
weren't so many of them in the Equilor sky that she hadn't 
already memorized the brightest patterns. She'd never seen 
a star grow brighter before, except on Gastal when the star 
had been a predatory planeswalker.
    Xantcha ran inside, awakened the children, and was 
herding them to the larders when Tessu raced through the 
always-open door.
    "I was sending them to shelter, before that thing-" 
Xantcha pointed at the brightness overhead-"crashes on top 
of us."
    The children had rushed to their mother, babbling in 
their own language-offering apologies and excuses for why 
they weren't in bed, Xantcha guessed, and maybe blaming 
her, though there were no pointed fingers or condemning 
glances. Tessu calmed them quickly. If the youngest was 
indeed eighty, Tessu had had several lifetimes in which to 
learn the tricks of motherhood. She didn't urge them into 
the larder, however, but outside to the sunrise gathering 
place.
    "Thank you for thinking first of the children," Tessu 
said. It wasn't what she'd come running home to say, but 
the words seemed sincere. "Nothing will crash down on 
Equilor. A star is dying."
    Xantcha shook her head, unable to comprehend the 
notion. "It happens frequently, or so the elders say, but 
only twice when we on the ground could see it, and never as 
bright as this." Tessu took Xantcha's hands gently between 
hers. "It is an omen."
    "Urza? Is Urza-?"
    "There will be a change. I can't say more than that. 
Change doesn't come easily to Equilor. We will go outside 
and see what the sunrise brings."
    Xantcha freed herself. "You know more. Tell me ... 
please?'
    "I know no more, Xantcha. I suspect-yes, I suspect the 
elders have gotten Keodoz's attention. The problem with 
Urza will be resolved, quickly."
    Xantcha stared at her hands. She didn't grieve or wail. 
Urza had brought this on himself, but when she tried to 
imagine her life without him she began to shiver.
    "Don't borrow trouble," Tessu advised, draping a length 
of cloth over Xantcha's shoulders. "The sun hasn't risen 
yet. Come outside and wait with us."
    No night had ever been longer. The dying star continued 
to brighten until it cast shadows all around. It remained 
visible after the other stars had dimmed and when the dawn 
began. Xantcha worried the hem loose from her borrowed 
shawl and began to mindlessly unravel it.
    There was change, more noticeable than anyone had 
imagined. As dawn's perimeter moved down the mountain, the 
caves flashed in unison and in complex rhythm that could 
only be a code. Xantcha tugged on Tessu's sleeve.
    "What does it mean?" she whispered.
    "It means they've come to their senses," Pakuya 
snapped. "If that fool wants to change a world, let him 
change his own!"
    To which Tessu added, "You'll be leaving soon."
    "Urza's alive?"
    "No more than he was yesterday, and I'd be surprised if 
he's learned anything. Keodoz certainly hasn't. But that's 
for the best, isn't it, if they both think they've made the 
changes for themselves?"
    Xantcha thought a moment, then nodded. Urza 'walked up 
a few moments later.
    "The future's ended before it began," he began, talking 
to her, talking to the household and talking to himself 
equally. "I cannot stay to lead you, and Keodoz has already 
begun to waver in the face of stagnant opposition. But they 
have lifted me into the night and shown me a frightening 
sight. The fortress I made around the planes where I was 
born has been brought down by a misguided fool! As my 
brother and I undid the Thran, so I have been undone by 
ignorance. But I can go back, and I will go back.
    "Equilor, however, is on its own. You will have to 
complete my visions without my guidance."
    The household made a fair show of grief. From Pakuya to 
Brya, they said how sorry they were that they wouldn't get 
to live the future Urza and Keodoz had promised them. The 
entire community flattered Urza's righteousness and 
strength of character. They wished him well and offered to 
make him a feast in honor of his departure for Dominaria. 
Xantcha was relieved when Urza declined. She didn't think 
she'd have the stomach for an extended display of 
insincerity.
    Tessu had been right. It was for the best that Urza 
left Equilor thinking the decision had been his own.
    It took them a hundred Dominarian years to 'walk the 
between-worlds from Equilor to Dominaria, but in the spring 
of the 3,2I0th year after Urza's birth, Xantcha finally 
stood on the world where she'd been destined to sleep.
 
                        CHAPTER 21
 
    "If Gix could find me, he would find me. He would have 
found me before I left Pincar City. He would have come for 
me while I slept. If he didn't want to be seen, he would 
have sent sleepers after me."
    Eight days after her narrow escape, Xantcha sat in the 
branches of a oak tree. The sun would set sometime during 
the thunderstorm that was bearing in from the ocean. She'd 
been watching the clouds pile up all afternoon, watching 
the lightning since she left Russiore with the day-traders. 
Her armor tended to attract lightning even as it protected 
her from the bolts, and a big, old tree, standing by itself 
on a hillside, wouldn't be a good hiding place much longer.
    Once the storm struck, Xantcha figured she'd find a 
saner place to wait for Urza. With all that metal and 
exposed sinew, Gix wasn't apt to come looking for her in 
the rain.
    "He didn't know we were here. He didn't recognize me 
until he found the spark in my mind."
    The spark. She'd had a headache the first day away from 
Pincar City, but her back had ached, too, along with her 
neck and jaw and every other part of her body: the 
aftermath of total terror.
    There were uglier beasts in the multiverse, meaner 
ones, and possibly more dangerous ones. None of them had a 
demon's malignant aura. Born-folk had a word, rape. It 
occurred on every world, in every language. In Phyrexian, 
as Xantcha understood it, the word for rape was Gix.
    Xantcha had scrubbed her skin raw even though Gix 
hadn't touched her because she couldn't scour her mind. 
She'd rehearsed a score of confessions, too, and her 
greatest fear as the wind whipped the branches around her 
wasn't that Gix would find her but that he'd already found 
Urza ... or Ratepe.
    Urza could take care of himself. Xantcha had to believe 
that; she couldn't let herself believe, even for a 
heartbeat, that Gix had told the truth when he'd said "I 
made the brothers, too, and then I made you." And if she 
believed that Urza's mind was his own, then she could be 
confident it would take the Ineffable to challenge him in 
single combat. But whatever she managed to believe about 
herself and Urza, it didn't help when she thought of 
Ratepe, alone and unsuspecting on the Ohran ridge. Rat 
wouldn't have a chance, whether Gix came to kill or 
corrupt.
    And when all those memories of Ratepe's face had freed 
her from Gix's thrall, surely some of them had given away 
the cottage's location, if Gix were inclined to find the 
man who went with that face.
    "Gix doesn't care," she told the oak tree. "Phyrexians 
have no imagination."
    Rain pelted, driven by the wind, and Xantcha was 
drenched in an instant. Urza's armor was strange that way. 
It would protect her from fire or the complete absence of 
breathable air, but it was entirely vulnerable to plain 
water. Xantcha clambered down a branch or two, then dropped 
straight to the ground. She found an illusion of shelter 
among the briar bushes tangled at the bottom of the hill.
    Urza would find her no matter where she hid. Her heart, 
he said, pulled him between-worlds. He'd grumble about the 
rain, if he arrived before the storm died out. Not that any 
weather affected him; Urza simply didn't like surprises. He 
wouldn't like her confession.
    The storm moved south without clearing the air. A 
steady rain continued to fall, as a starless night closed 
in around the briars. Xantcha tried to stay awake, but it 
was a losing struggle. She hadn't slept much in Russiore. 
She'd been busy, for one thing, distributing nine days' 
worth of screaming spiders in less than eight and afraid to 
close her eyes for the other. The briars were secure and 
friendly by comparison and the rain's patter, a lullaby.
    Xantcha had no idea how long she'd been asleep when 
Urza awoke her with her name.
    "Over here!" she called back.
    The rain had stopped, save for drips from the leaves 
around her. A few stars shone through the thinning clouds, 
silhouetting Urza as he strode down the hill.
    "Ready to go home?" He sounded cheerful. Xantcha told 
herself that confession would be easier with Urza in a good 
mood. "No sacks?" He cocked his head at her empty hands and 
shoulders. "You couldn't get his food and such?" Urza 
generally avoided choosing a name for Ratepe.
    "Urza, I have to talk to you-"
    "Problems in Russiore? Are they in the midst of a 
famine?"
    "Not exactly. I didn't have time to scrounge supplies. 
Something came up-"
    "Not to worry. I have other plans, anyway. We'll talk 
at the cot-tage."
    He seized Xantcha's wrist, and before she could protest 
they were between-worlds. The journey was swift, as always. 
Two strides through nothing, and they were on the Ohran 
ridge. It was also, as always, disorienting. Urza stepped 
out several hundred paces from the cottage to give Xantcha 
a chance to gather her wits before they greeted Ratepe.
    Xantcha's nerves reassembled themselves slowly, in part 
because she had to assure herself that the cottage was 
unharmed. Urza had gotten ahead of her. She ran to catch 
up.
    "Urza, I said we have to talk. There's a problem. You. 
Ratepe. Your brother. The spiders-" All her carefully 
rehearsed statements had vanished in the between-worlds.
    "I've thought it through. I can do the work of all 
three of us for the next nine days. I'll distribute the 
artifacts that he's made for us, yours and mine together, 
and get the next batch assembled. It's another aspect of 
time: I'll live a little faster. It's good practice, 
crawling before walking. The spiders won't end this war, 
Xantcha. They'll only buy time until I solve the Phyrexian 
problem at its source."
    Urza had gotten over his obsession with righting his 
brother's fate, but he still talked of traveling back in 
time, much further back in time. Urza wanted to meet the 
Thran and fight beside them in their final battle against 
the Phyrexians. He thought they might know enemy's true 
home and, although he didn't say it, Xantcha believed Urza 
hoped go behind the Thran, all the way to the Phyrexians' 
first world to annihilate rather than exile them.
    Gix had said the Thran were waiting. The demon could 
have rummaged the name out of her memories or out of Mishra 
during the war. Almost certainly Gix wasn't telling the 
truth; at least not the important parts of it, but Urza 
needed to know what had happened in the catacomb beneath 
Avohir's temple in Pincar City.
    "I met ... I found . . ." She was still tongue-tied. 
Had the demon left something in her that left her able to 
think but not to speak? It wasn't impossible. Gix savored 
fear spiced with helplessness and frustration. She didn't 
know the measure of the red light's power, but she'd lost 
an entire afternoon in the catacomb, and when Ratepe burst 
out of memory to save her, she'd been doing the 
unthinkable: walking toward Phyrexia.
    "Xantcha?" Urza stopped. He faced her and gave her his 
full attention.
    "We have to go back to Pincar City."
    "No, Efuan Pincar is out of the question. Anywhere 
we've found sleepers is out of the question. You and he 
have to go someplace, of course. I don't want anyone around 
while I'm working this time. I could wait. I should wait 
until after the Glimmer Moon rises. We can never know the 
future, Xantcha. I'm sure of that. Only the past is 
forever, and only now gives us choices. I choose to give 
the next nine days to you and him so you will always have 
them. Tell me where you want to be, and I'll 'walk you both 
there in the morning."
    Nine days. Nine days in hiding while she sorted out her 
tangled thoughts? It was the coward's way, but Xantcha 
seized it. "I'll talk to him." A lie. Xantcha could feel 
that confessing to Ratepe would be no easier than 
confessing to Urza. "We'll decide where we want to go."
    Ratepe welcomed them with the enthusiasm and relief of 
any talkative youth who'd kept company with himself for 
entirely too long. He cast several inquiring glances 
Xantcha's way. She pretended not to notice them while Urza 
announced his intention to reclaim his workroom for the 
next nine days.
    "You told Urza," Ratepe snapped to Xantcha the moment 
they were alone together. "Now he's taking over everything! 
Just tell me, did you get my artifacts attached to Avohir's 
altar?"
    "One," Xantcha answered truthfully. "There were 
sleepers in the temple, made up as Shratta. And Shratta 
dead in the catacombs. They were finished years ago, 
Ratepe. If there are Shratta left, they're like the Efuands 
in the Red-Stripes. They're in league, consciously or not, 
with Phyrexia." She thought of Gix; this wasn't the time to 
tell him, not when they were both angry. "I put your 
shatter-spiders, and screamers, too, in places where the 
glistening scent was strong. I didn't get to the barracks."
    Ratepe threw his head back and swore at the ceiling. 
"What were you thinking! I don't want to bring Avohir's 
sanctuary down-not while the Red-Stripe barracks is still 
standing!" He shook his head and stood with his back to 
her. "When it wasn't what I expected, you should've waited. 
Sweet Avohir, what did you tell Urza?"
    Xantcha's guilt and anxiety evaporated. "I didn't tell 
him anything!" she shouted.
    "Then keep your voice down!"
    "Stop telling me what to do!"
    They were on opposite sides of the table, ready to 
lunge at each other, and not with the passion that normally 
accompanied their reunions. Ratepe seemed to have outrun 
himself. Jaw clenched, eyes pleading, he looked across the 
table, but Xantcha was similarly paralyzed. It was her 
nature, created in Phyrexia and shaped over time in Urza's 
company, to back down or explode when cornered. This was a 
moment when she couldn't see a clear path in either 
direction.
    The door was at her back. Xantcha ducked and ran out, 
leaving it open behind her, listening for the sounds that 
never came. She settled in the darkness, wrestling with her 
conscience, until the lamps in her shared room had 
flickered and died. Approaching the door through starlight, 
she saw a dark silhouette at the table, where Ratepe had 
fallen asleep with his head on his arms. She crept past 
him, as silently as she'd crept toward the Pincar catacomb. 
Her bed was strung with a creaking rope mattress. Xantcha 
quietly tucked herself in a corner by her treasure chest.
    Ratepe was sprawled on the bed when she awoke. Urza was 
in the doorway, the golden light of dawn behind him.
    "Are you ready to "walk?" he asked.
    Urza never came into her side of the cottage. Perhaps 
he thought she'd been sleeping in the corner since Ratepe 
arrived. They weren't ready to 'walk anyway; Ratepe wasn't 
ready to wake up. He was cross-grained from the moment his 
eyes opened. Xantcha expected him to start something they'd 
all regret, but instead he just said, "You decide," as he 
slipped past Urza on his way to the well.
    "We don't need you to 'walk us anywhere," Xantcha said 
to Urza as she stretched the kinks out of her legs. Her 
foot felt as if her boot was lined with hot, sharp needles.
    "I don't want you near here while I work."
    "We won't be."
    "Don't dawdle, then. I want to get started!"
    Ratepe stayed away while Xantcha rearranged her 
traveling gear. She packed a good deal of gold and silver, 
which could be traded wherever they went, but included 
copper, too, in case they got no farther than their closest 
neighbors along the frontier between the ridge and the 
coast. She threw in flour for journey bread, as well, and 
thought about the hunter's bow suspended from the rafters. 
Nine days could be an uncomfortably long time to live off 
journey bread, but a bow could be troublesome in a city. In 
the end Xantcha put a few more coins in her belt purse, 
left the bow on its hook, and met a sulking Ratepe beside 
the well.
    Urza either didn't notice or didn't care that Xantcha 
and Ratepe were scarcely speaking to each other. He'd been 
away from his workroom for nearly a half-year and didn't 
wait to see the sphere rise before sealing himself in with 
his ideas.
    The morning sun was framed with fair weather clouds 
against a rich blue sky. Prairie wildflowers blanketed the 
land above which the sphere soared. It was difficult, in 
the face of such natural beauty, to remain sullen and sour, 
but Xantcha and Ratepe both rose to the challenge. A 
northwest wind stream caught the sphere and carried it 
toward Kovria, southeast of the ridge. There was nothing in 
the Kovrian barrens to hold Xantcha's attention, no 
destinations worth mentioning, but changing their course 
meant choosing their course, so they drifted into Kovria.
    By mid-afternoon, the tall-grass prairies of the ridge 
had given way to badlands.
    "Where are we going?" Ratepe asked, virtually the first 
full sentence he'd uttered since the sphere rose.
    "Where does it look like we're going?"
    "Nowhere."
    "Then nowhere, it is. Nowhere's good enough for me."
    "Put us down. You're crazed, Xantcha. Something 
happened in Efuan Pincar, and it's left you crazed. I don't 
want to be up here with you."
    Xantcha brought them down on a plain of baked dirt and 
weedy scrub. They were both silent while the sphere 
collapsed and powdered.
    "What went wrong?" Ratepe asked as he brushed the last 
of the white stuff from his face. "It's not just sleepers. 
Sleepers wouldn't frighten you, and you're afraid. I didn't 
think there was anything that could do that."
    "Lots of things frighten me. Urza frightens me, 
sometimes. You frighten me. The between-worlds frightens 
me. Demons frighten me." Xantcha tore a handful of leaves 
off the nearest bush and began shredding them. Let Ratepe 
guess; let him choose, if he could.
    "There was a demon in Avohir's temple? In the catacombs 
with the dead Shratta? A Phyrexian demon?"
    Ratepe was uncommonly good at guessing and choosing. "I 
don't know any other kind."
    "Avohir's mercy! You and Urza didn't find demons 
anywhere else, did you?" "I didn't."
    "Why Efuan Pincar? If a Phyrexian demon was going to 
come to Dominaria, why come to Efuan Pincar. We keep to 
ourselves. When our ancestors left Argive, they never 
looked back. They settled on the north shore of Gulmany 
because it's so far away from everywhere else. We're not 
rich. We don't bother our neighbors, and they've never 
bothered us. We don't even have an army-which is probably 
why we had trouble with the Shratta and the Red-Stripes, 
but why would that interest Phyrexia? I don't understand. 
Do you?"
    "I told you, demons frighten me. I didn't ask 
questions, just... just got away." She stripped another 
handful of leaves. Xantcha wanted to tell Ratepe 
everything, but the words to get her started weren't in her 
mind.
    "The day you bought me, I told you that you were a 
lousy liar. You may be three thousand years old, Xantcha, 
but my eight-year-old brother could fib better than you. 
When he got into trouble, though, I could guess what he was 
hiding, 'cause I'd hidden it myself. I can't guess about 
demons."
    Xantcha scattered the leafy bits and faced Ratepe. "It 
was Gix. I smelled sleepers in the sanctuary, I followed 
the smell, planting spiders as I went, yours and Urza's 
both. I wound up way underground, in the dark. There was a 
passageway, one of the big, old, upright ones, and there 
was Gix."
    "You said Gix had been killed in the Sixth Sphere." 
"The Seventh. He was excoriated, consigned to endless 
torment. We were taught that nothing escapes the Seventh 
Sphere." "Another Phyrexian lie? You're sure it was Gix, 
not some other demon?"
    "Yes." One answer for both questions. "Did he hurt 
you?"
    Ratepe never failed to ask the question Xantcha wasn't 
expecting. "I'm here, aren't I?"
    "Then, what's got you so riled? Why were we headed 
'nowhere'? Unless . . . wait, I get it now. Urza's sent you 
off with the mere mortal. He's not that crazed. He knows 
what I am, who I'm not. He's going back after Gix, and 
you're here with me instead of-"
    "I didn't tell Urza." The words belched out of her.
    "You found a Phyrexian demon under Avohir's temple and 
you didn't tell Urza?"
    She turned away in shame.
    "Of course," Ratepe sighed. "He'd yell at you and blame 
you, just as I've yelled at you and blamed you. And you are 
a lot like my little brother when you get accused of 
something that's not your fault. And Gix. Gix was the one 
who got Mishra. Mishra didn't know-not until it was too 
late. Strange thing. They fought over those two stones that 
are Urza's eyes now, but I don't think either brother could 
hear the stones sing."
    Xantcha took a deep breath. "Do you wonder why you can 
hear them."
    "I can't hear them. I only hear Mishra's stone. I don't 
know for sure that the Mightstone sings, but-yes, I do 
wonder. I think about it a lot, more than I want to. Why? 
Did Gix say something about the stones?"
    "Yes. He said he made them, and then he said something 
about you." And Urza, Xantcha's mind added, but not her 
tongue.
    Ratepe was pale and speechless.
    "He could have gotten your name out of my mind. I was 
careful what I gave him, enough to keep him from digging 
too deep. But I got in trouble. Serious trouble." Xantcha's 
hands were shaking. She clasped them together behind her 
back. "He had me, Rat. I was walking toward the passageway. 
I would've gone into Phyrexia, and that would've been the 
end of me, I'm sure. Then, suddenly, all I could think of 
was you."
    "Me?"
    "You're the first 'mere mortal' I've gotten to know. 
You've..." Blood rushed to Xantcha's face. She was hot, 
embarrassed, but she stumbled on. "Thinking about you 
pulled me back. But Gix was in my mind when I did, so he 
could have taken your name and made a lie around it. 
Everything he said could've been lies . . . probably was 
lies." And why share Gix's lies with anyone? "He didn't 
tell me anything I didn't know, except, maybe, about the 
Thran. And, well, Mishra knew some things about the Thran."
    Though Xantcha could feel the blood draining from her 
own face, Ratepe's was still dangerously pale.
    "Tell me what Gix said about me, then what he said 
about Mishra and the Thran. Maybe I can tell you if it's 
lies or not."
    "Gix said he wondered if I'd found you, as if he'd 
planned that we were supposed to meet."
    "And about the Thran?"
    "When I said that Urza would finish what the Thran had 
started against the Phyrexians, he laughed and said the 
Thran were waiting for Urza and that they'd take back what 
was theirs. Gix was thinking about Urza's eyes-at least, I 
started thinking about Urza's eyes and how they were the 
last of the Thran powerstones. Gix laughed louder, and the 
next thing I knew, I was thinking about you and not walking 
toward the portal. What he said about you and what he said 
about me, they're lies. Even if Mishra was compleated in 
Phyrexia... even if his flesh and blood were rendered for 
the vats ... I was one of thousands. We were exactly alike. 
We don't even scar, Ratepe. We couldn't tell ourselves 
apart!"
    "Lies," Ratepe said so softly that Xantcha wasn't sure 
she'd heard him correctly and asked him to repeat himself. 
"Lies. The Weakstone's a sort of memory. Mostly it's 
Mishra's memory, but I've been hit with some Thran memories 
and some of Urza's, too, though not as strong. With Mishra, 
there's personality. I'm thankful I never met him while he 
was alive. He'd've killed me for sure. With the Thran and 
Urza, it's like faded paintings. But if you were Mishra-if 
any part of you was Mishra-the Weakstone would have 
recognized him in you, even though you're Phyrexian. And if 
I'd been touched by Gix, I'd be dead. The Weakstone doesn't 
like Phyrexians, Xantcha, and it especially doesn't like 
Gix."
    "Urza's eye doesn't like me?"
    Ratepe shook his head, "Sorry, no. It sees you, 
sometimes, but if Urza doesn't trust you, the Weakstone 
could be responsible because it doesn't trust you."
    "The Weakstone has opinions?"
    "Influence. It tries to influence."
    Xantcha considered Urza's eyes watching her and Ratepe 
each time they retreated to her side of the wall. "It must 
be overjoyed when we're together."
    Color returned to Ratepe's face in a single heartbeat. 
"I'm not Mishra. I make my own opinions."
    "What do you know from Mishra and the Weakstone about 
the Thran and the Phyrexians?" Xantcha asked when Ratepe's 
blush had spread past his ears.
    "They hate each other, with a deep, blinding hate that 
gives no quarter. But I'll tell you honestly, in the images 
I've gotten of their war, I can't tell one side from the 
other. The Thran weren't flesh and blood, no more than the 
Phyrexians. Even Mishra's just something the Weakstone 
uses. Urza's notion that the Thran sacrificed themselves to 
save Dominaria, maybe that's the Mightstone's influence, 
but it's not true. My world's better off without both of 
them, Thran and Phyrexians together."
    They'd wandered away from their gear. Xantcha headed 
back. "Maybe Urza will succeed someday in "walking between 
times as easily as he 'walks between worlds. I'd like to 
know what really happened back there at Koilos. I'd like to 
see it for myself. It's a shadow over everything I've ever 
known, all the way back to the vats."
    Ratepe corrected her pronunciation of Koilos, reducing 
the three syllables to two and moving the accent to the 
first.
    "I heard it from Urza and he's the one who named it," 
she retorted.
    "I guess language drifts in three thousand years. It's 
still there, you know-well, it was three hundred years ago 
when the ancestors left Argive."
    Xantcha stopped short. "I thought it wasn't recorded 
where the first Efuands came from. That's part of your 
myth."
    "It is ... part of the myth, that is. But Father said 
our language is mostly Argivian and the oldest books, 
before the Shratta burnt them, had been written in 
Argivian. And, if you look at a map, Efuan Pincar is about 
as far away from Argive as you can get without sailing 
right off the edge."
    "And Koilos?" Xantcha stuck with Urza's pronunciation. 
"It's still there in Argive?"
    "It's not in Argivia. It never was, but folk knew where 
it was three hundred years ago. It's like The Antiquity 
Wars, something that's not supposed to be forgotten. I 
guess it was inaccessible for most of the Ice Age, but when 
the world got warmer again, the kings of Argivia and their 
neighbors sent folk up on the Kher to make sure the ruins 
were still ruins."
    "Urza's never mentioned them. I just assumed Koilos 
vanished with Argoth."
    "You've seen a map of what's left of Terisiare?"
    Xantcha shrugged. There were maps in her copies of The 
Antiquity Wars. She'd assumed they were wrong and paid no 
attention to them.
    "We'd have to go over the Sea of Laments. We'd never 
make it there and back in nine days," Ratepe said with a 
smile that invited conspiracy. Waste not, want not. If Gix 
hadn't lied about the young Efuand, they were all doomed.
    "We'd make landfall on Argivia in two very cold days 
and colder nights. Getting back would be more difficult, 
but it's that or go back to the cottage and tell Urza that 
I saw Gix in Pincar City."
    "He wouldn't be pleased to see us."
 
                      * * * * *
 
    The journey over the Sea of Laments was as uneventful 
as it was unpleasant. They'd traded for blankets and an 
oil-cloth sail in a village on Gulmany's south coast. The 
fisherman who took Xantcha's silver thought she was insane; 
a little while later, both Ratepe and Xantcha agreed with 
him, but by then it was too late. They were in the wash of 
a roaring wind river and remained there until they saw land 
again. For two days and nights there was nothing to do but 
huddle beneath blankets and the sail.
    "Don't you have to keep one hand free?" Ratepe had 
shouted early on, as they struggled to wrap the blankets 
evenly around their feet.
    "Tack across this?' she shouted back. "We're here for 
the ride."
    "How many times have you crossed the sea?"
    "Once, by mistake."
    "Sorry I asked."
    Misery ended after sunrise on the third day. There was 
land below, land as far as the eye could see. Xantcha 
thought down and thrust her hand through the sphere for 
good measure. Her hand turned white as they plummeted down 
to familiar altitudes.
    As her hand began to thaw, Xantcha asked, "Now, which 
way to Koilos?"
    "Where are we?"
    "Don't you recognize anything from your maps?"
    "Avohir's sweet mercy, Xantcha, maps don't look like 
the ground!"
    They found an oasis and a goatherd who seemed unfazed 
by the sight of two strangers in a place where strangers 
couldn't be common. He spoke a language neither of them had 
heard before but recognized the word Koilos in its older, 
three-syllable form. He rattled off a long speech before 
pointing to the southeast. The only words they recognized, 
beside Koilos, were Urza and Mishra. Xantcha traded a 
silver-set agate for all the food the youth was carrying. 
He strode away, whistling and laughing.
    "What do you think he said?" Xantcha asked when they'd 
returned to the gulch where their gear was hidden. "Other 
than that we're fools and idiots."
    "The usual curses against Urza and Mishra."
    The sphere flowed over them and they were rising before 
Ratepe continued.
    "Haven't you ever noticed how empty everything is? Even 
in Efuan Pincar, which was as far from Argoth as it could 
be, it's nothing to ride through wilderness and find 
yourself in the middle of ruins from the time before the 
ice and the war. Here in Argivia, according to the books 
the Ancestors brought to Pincar, they were still living in 
the shadows of the past-literally. They didn't have the 
wherewithal to build the buildings like the old ruins. Not 
enough people, not enough stone, not enough metal, not 
enough knowledge of how it was done. Urza talks about the 
mysteries of the Thran. The books my father studied talked 
about the mysteries of Urza and Mishra. They all talk about 
Koilos. It's the place in Terisiare, new or old, where 
everything comes to an end. It's a name to conjure 
darkness."
    Xantcha caught a tamer wind stream and adjusted their 
drift. "Does everyone in Efuan Pincar talk about such 
things? Are you a nation of storytellers?"
    Ratepe laughed bitterly. "No, just my father, and he 
taught me. My rather was a scholar, and both my 
grandfathers, too. The first things I remember are the 
three of them arguing about men and women who'd died a 
thousand years ago. I was ashamed of them. I hated lessons; 
I wanted to be anything but a scholar. Then the Shratta 
came. My grandfathers were dead by then, Avohir's mercy. My 
father did whatever he had to do to take care of us. When 
we got to the country, he learned farming as if it were a 
Sumifan chronicle, but he missed Pincar. He missed not 
having students to teach or someone to argue with. My 
mother told me to sit at his feet and learn or she'd take 
her belt to me. I never argued with my mother." Xantcha 
stared at Ratepe who was staring at the horizon, eyes 
glazed and fists clenched, the way he looked whenever he 
remembered what he'd lost. Urza had buried Mishra beneath 
layers of obsession, and there was little enough in 
Xantcha's own life worth cherishing. Looking at Ratepe, 
trying to imagine his grief, all she felt was envy.
    The winds were steady, the sky was clear, and the moon 
was bright. They soared until midnight and were in the air 
again after a sunrise breakfast. By midday they saw the 
reflection of a giant lake to their south, and by the end 
of a long afternoon they were over the foothills of the 
Kher Ridge. There were no villages, no roads, not even the 
bright green dot of an oasis. Ratepe closed his eyes and 
folded his hands. "Now what?" Xantcha asked. "I'm praying 
for a sign." "I thought you knew!"
    "I do, somewhat. The landscape's changed a bit since 
Mishra was here last. But I think I'll recognize the 
mountains when I see them."
    "We're fools, you know. At most we'll have a day at 
Koilos-if we find it."
    "Look for a saddle-back mountain with three smaller 
peaks in front of it."
    "A saddle-back," Xantcha muttered, and lowered her hand 
to get a better look.
    The setting sun threw mountain-sized shadows that 
obscured as much as they revealed, but there was nothing 
that looked like a double-peaked mountain, and the wind 
streams were starting to get treacherous as the air cooled. 
Xantcha looked for a place to set up their night camp. A 
patch of flat ground, a bit lighter than its surroundings 
and shaped like an arrowhead, beckoned.
    "I'm taking us down there for the night," she told 
Ratepe, dropping the sphere out of the wind stream.
    He said something in reply. Xantcha didn't catch the 
words. They'd caught a crosswind that was determined to 
keep her off the arrowhead. She felt like she'd been the 
victor in a bare-knuckle brawl by the time the sphere 
collapsed.
    Ratepe sprang immediately to his feet. "Avohir answers 
prayers!" he shouted, running toward a stone near the 
arrowhead's tip.
    Time had taken a toll on the stone, which stood a bit 
taller than Ratepe himself. The spiraled carvings were 
weathered to illegibility, but to find such a stone in this 
place could only mean one thing.
    Ratepe lifted Xantcha into the air. "We've found the 
path! Are you sure you don't want to keep going?"
    She thought about it a moment. "I'm sure." Wriggling 
free, she explored the marks with her fingertips. Here and 
there, it was still possible to discern a curve or angle, 
places that might have been parallel grooves or raised dot 
patterns that struck deep in memory. "Koilos isn't a place 
I want to see first by moonlight."
    "Good point. Too many ghosts," Ratepe agreed with a 
sigh. "But we will see it-Koilos, with my own eyes. Seven 
thousand years. My father ..." He shook his head and walked 
away from the stone.
    Xantcha didn't need to ask to know what he hadn't said.
    The desert air didn't hold its heat. They were cold and 
hungry before the stars unveiled themselves. Xantcha doled 
out small portions of journey bread and green-glowing goat 
cheese, the last of the dubious edibles they'd traded from 
the goatherd. The cheese and its indescribable taste clung 
to the roof of Xantcha's mouth. Ratepe wisely stuck to the 
journey bread. He fell asleep while Xantcha sat listening 
to her stomach complain, as she watched the sky and the 
weathered stone and thought-a lot-of water.
    The sphere reeked of cheese when she yawned it at dawn. 
Ratepe, displaying a healthy sense of self-preservation, 
said nothing about the smell.
    It was all willpower that morning. The wind streams 
flowed out of the mountains, not into them. She'd been 
about to give up and let the sphere drift back to the 
desert when Ratepe spotted another stone, toppled by age. 
Xantcha banked the sphere into the valley it seemed to 
mark. They hadn't been in it long when it doglegged to the 
right and they saw, in the distance, a saddle-back mountain 
overshadowing three smaller peaks.
    With Mishra's memories to guide them, they had no 
trouble weaving through the mountain spurs until they came 
to the cleft and hollowed plateau Urza had named Koilos, 
the Secret Heart. Xantcha could have sought the higher 
streams and brought them over the top. She chose to follow 
the cleft instead and couldn't have said why if Ratepe had 
asked. But he stayed silent.
    Seven thousand years, and the battle scars remained: 
giant pockings in the cliffs on either side of them, 
cottage-sized chunks of rubble littering the valley floor. 
Here and there was a shadow left by fire, not sun. And 
finally there was the cavern fortress itself, built by the 
Thran, rediscovered by two brothers, then laid bare during 
the war: ruins within ruins.
    "That's where they hid from the dragons," Ratepe said, 
pointing to a smaller cave nearly hidden behind a hill of 
rubble.
    "I didn't expect it to be so big."
    "Everything's smaller now. Smell anything?"
    "Time," Xantcha replied, and not facetiously. The sense 
of age was everywhere, in the plateau, the cleft which had 
shattered it, the Thran, and the brothers. But nowhere did 
she sense Phyrexia.
    "You're sure?"
    "It will be enough if I know that Gix lied."
    Xantcha started up the path to the cavern mouth. Ratepe 
fell behind as he paused to examine whatever caught his 
eye. He jogged up the path, catching her just before she 
entered the shadows. "There's nothing left. I thought for 
sure there'd be something."
    "Urza and I, we're older than forever, Ratepe, and 
Koilos is older than us."
    Her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the darkness. 
Ratepe found the past he was looking for strewn across the 
stone: hammers and chisels preserved by the cavern itself. 
He hefted a mallet, its wood dark with age but still 
sturdy.
    "Mishra might have held this."
    "In your dreams, Ratepe," Xantcha retorted, unable to 
conceal her disappointment.
    Koilos was big and old but as dead as an airless world. 
It offered no insights to her about the Thran or the 
Phyrexians or even about the brothers, no matter how many 
discarded tools or pots Ratepe eagerly examined.
    "We may as well leave," she said when the afternoon was 
still young and Ratepe had just found a scrap of cloth.
    "Leave? We haven't seen everything yet."
    "There's no water, and we don't have a lot of food with 
us, unless you want to try some of that cheese. What's here 
to see?"
    "I don't know. That's why we have to stay. I'm only 
halfway around this room, and there's an open passage at 
the back! And I want to see Koilos by moonlight."
    Urza's idea, in the beginning, had been to get her and 
Ratepe away from the cottage, to give them some time 
together. Koilos surely wasn't what Urza had in mind, but 
Ratepe was enjoying himself. Whether they left now or in 
the morning wasn't going to make much difference in the 
return trip to Gulmany, and considering what that journey 
home was going to take out of her, Xantcha decided she 
could use some rest.
    "All right. Wake me at sunset, then."
    Xantcha didn't think she'd fall asleep on the stone but 
she did until Ratepe shook her shoulder.
    "Come see. It's really beautiful, in a stark way, like 
a giant's tomb."
    Sunset light flooded through the cavern mouth. Ratepe 
had stirred enough dust to turn the air into ruddy curtains 
streaked with shadows. They walked hand in hand to the 
ledge where the path ended and the cavern began. The 
hollowed plateau appeared drenched in blood. Xantcha was 
transfixed by the sight, but Ratepe wanted her to turn 
around.
    "There are carvings everywhere," he said. "They 
appeared like magic out of the shadows once the sunlight 
came in."
    Xantcha turned and would have collapsed if Ratepe 
hadn't been holding her. "What's wrong?"
    "It's writing, Ratepe. It's writing, and I can read it, 
most of it. It's like the lessons carved into the walls of 
the Fane of Flesh." "What does it say?"
    "Names. Mostly names and numbers-places. Battles, who 
fought who. . . ." Her eyes followed the column carvings. 
She'd gone cold and scarcely had the strength to fill her 
lungs. "What names? Any that I'd recognize?"
    "Gix," she said, though there was another that she 
recognized: Yawgmoth, which she didn't-couldn't-say aloud. 
"And Xantcha, among the numbers." "Phyrexian?" "Thran."
    "We know they fought." Ratepe freed his fingers from 
her death grip.
    Xantcha grabbed them again. "No, they didn't fight. Not 
the Phyrexians against the Thran. The Thran fought 
themselves." "You can't be reading it right."
    "I'm reading it because it's the same writing that's 
carved in the walls of every Fane in Phyrexia! Some of the 
words are unfamiliar, but-Ratepe! My name is up there. My 
name is up there because Xantcha is a number carved in the 
floor of the Fane of Flesh to mark where I was supposed to 
stand!" She made the familiar marks in the dust then 
pointed to similar carvings on the cavern walls.
    Ratepe resisted. "All right, maybe this was the 
Phyrexian stronghold and the Thran attacked it, instead of 
the other way around. I mean, nobody really knows."
    "I know! It says Gix, the silver-something, strong-
something of the Thran. Of the Thran, Ratepe. If Urza could 
go back in time, he'd find Oix here waiting for him. That's 
what Gix meant! Waste not, want not, Ratepe. Gix was here 
seven thousand years ago! He wasn't lying, not completely. 
Those are Thran powerstones that you and Urza call the 
Mightstone and the Weakstone. The stones made the brothers 
what they were, Ratepe, and Gix might well have made the 
stones!"
    "The Phyrexians stole powerstones from the Thran?"
    "You're not listening!" Xantcha waved her arms at a 
heavily carved wall. "It's all there. Two factions. Sheep 
and pigs, Red-Stripes and Shratta, Urza and Mishra, take 
your pick. 'The glory and destiny is compleation'-
compleation, the word, Ratepe, the exact angle-for-angle 
word that's carved on the doors of the Fane of Flesh. And 
there." She pointed at another section. " 'Life served, 
never weakened' and the word Thran, Rat, is the first glyph 
of the word for life." She recited them in Phyrexian, so he 
could hear the similarities, as strong as the similarities 
between their pronunciation of Koilos. "If language drifts 
in three thousand years, imagine what it could do in seven, 
once everyone's compleat and only newts have flesh cords in 
their throats."
    The sun had slipped below the mountain tops. The marks, 
the words, were fading. Xantcha turned in Ratepe's arms to 
face him.
    "He's been wrong. All this time-almost all his life-
Urza's been wrong. The Phyrexians never invaded Dominaria! 
There was no Phyrexia until Gix and the Ineffable left 
here. Winners, losers, I can't tell. We knew that. We spent 
over a thousand years looking for the world where the 
Phyrexians came from, so we could learn from those who 
defeated them .. . and all the time, it was Urza's own 
world."
    Xantcha was shaking, sobbing. Ratepe tried to comfort 
her, but it was too soon.
    "Urza would say to me, that's Phyrexian, that's 
abomination. Only the Thran way is the right way, the pure 
way. And I always thought to myself, the difference isn't 
that great. The Phyrexians aren't evil because they're 
compleat. They'd be evil no matter what they were, and 
those automata he was making, he was growing them in a jar. 
Is it right to grow gnats in a jar but not newts in a vat?"
    Ratepe held her tight against his chest before she 
pulled away. "The Red-Stripes and the Shratta were both bad 
luck for everybody who crossed either one of them," he said 
gently. "And so were Urza and Mishra. Any time there's only 
one right way, ordinary people get crushed-maybe even the 
Morvernish and the Baszerati."
    "But all our lives, Ratepe. All our lives, we've been 
chasing shadows! It's like someone reached inside and 
pulled everything out."
    "You just said it: the Phyrexians are evil. Urza's 
crazed, but he's not evil, and he's the only one here who 
can beat the Phyrexians at their own game. We wanted to 
find the truth. Well, it wasn't what we expected, but we 
found a truth. And we've still got to go back to Urza. The 
truth here doesn't change that, does it?"
    "We can't tell him. If he knew his Thran weren't the 
great and noble heroes of Dominaria ... If he knew that the 
Thran destroyed Mishra . . ."
    "You're right, but Mishra would laugh. I can hear him."
    "I can't believe that."
    "It's laugh or cry, Xantcha." Ratepe dried her tears. 
"If you've truly wasted three thousand years and you're 
stuck fighting a war that was stupid four thousand years 
before that, then either you laugh and keep going, or you 
cry and give it up."
 
                        CHAPTER 22
 
    There was no laughter three days later over the Sea of 
Laments. The weather had been chancy since Xantcha had put 
the Argi-vian coast at her back. From the start, thick 
clouds had blocked her view of the sun and stars. She 
navigated against a wind she knew wasn't steady and with an 
innate sense of direction that grew less reliable as she 
tired. They hadn't seen land for two days, not even a boat.
    Xantcha would have brought the sphere down on a raft 
just then and taken her chances with strangers. A black 
wall-cloud had formed, leaking lightning, to the northeast. 
The waves below were stiff with cross winds and froth. She 
knew better than to try to soar above the impending storm, 
didn't have the strength to outrun it, and didn't know what 
would happen to the sphere if- when-downdrafts slammed it 
into the ocean.
    Ratepe had his arms around her, keeping Xantcha warm 
and upright, the most he could do. He'd spotted the storm 
but hadn't said anything, other than that he knew how to 
swim. Ratepe was one up on Xantcha there; the long-ago 
seamen who'd taught her how to sail had warned her never to 
get friendly with the sea. If- when-they went down, she'd 
yawn out Urza's armor. Maybe it would keep her afloat, 
though it never had kept her dry.
    The storm was bigger than the wall-cloud, and fickle, 
too. In a matter of minutes it spawned smaller clouds, one 
to the north, the other directly overhead. The first wind 
was a downdraft that hit the sphere so hard Xantcha and 
Ratepe were weightless, floating and screaming within it. 
Then, as Xantcha fought to keep them above the waves, a 
vagrant wind struck from the south. The south wind pushed 
them into sheets of noisy, blinding rain.
    The squall died as suddenly as it had been born. 
Xantcha could see again and wished she couldn't. The 
distance between them and the storm's heart had been halved 
and, worse, a waterspout had spun out. Rooted in both the 
ocean and the clouds, the sinuous column of seawater and 
wind bore down on them as if it had eyes and they were 
prey.
    "What is that?" Ratepe whispered.
    "Waterspout," she told him and felt his fingers lock 
into her arms like talons.
    "Is it going to eat us?"
    The waterspout wasn't alive and didn't really have an 
appetite for fools, but that scarcely mattered as they were 
caught and spun with such force that the sphere flattened 
against them. It flattened but held, even when they slammed 
into the raging waves. At one point Xantcha thought they 
were underwater, if only because everything had become dark 
and quiet. Then the ocean spat them out, and they hurtled 
through wind and rain.
    Wind, rain, and, above all, lightning. Whatever the 
cyst produced, whether it was Urza's armor or the sphere, 
it attracted lightning. Bolts struck continuously. The air 
within the sphere turned acrid and odd. It pulled their 
hair and clothes away from their bodies and set everything 
aglow with blue-white light. Xantcha lost all sense of 
north or south and counted herself lucky that she still 
knew up from down.
    Every few moments the storm paused, as if regrouping 
its strength for the next assault. In one such breather, 
Ratepe leaned close to her ear and said, "I love you,"
    She shouted back, "We're not dead yet!" and surrendered 
the sphere to an updraft that carried them into the storm's 
heart.
    They rose until the rain became ice and froze around 
the sphere, making it heavy and driving it down to the sea. 
Xantcha thought for sure they'd hit the waves, sink, and 
drown, but the storm wasn't done playing with them. As 
lightning boiled off the ice, the winds launched them 
upward again. Xantcha tried to break the cycle, but her 
efforts were useless. They rose and froze, plummeted, and 
rose again, not once or twice, but nine times before they 
fell one last time and found themselves floating on the 
ocean as the storm passed on to the south.
    The pitch and roll among the choppy waves was the 
insult after injury. Ratepe's grip on Xantcha's arms 
weakened, and she suffered nausea.
    "I can't lift us up," she said, having tried and 
failed. "I'm going
    to have to let go of the sphere."
    "No!" Ratepe's plea should have been a shout; it was a 
barely coherent moan instead.
    "I'll make another-"
    "Too sick. Can't float."
    She tried to ignite his spirit. "A little seasickness 
won't kill you."
    "Can't."
    "Waste not, want not. I'm the one who can't swim! I'm 
counting on you to keep me afloat until I can make another 
sphere."
    Ratepe slumped beside her. His face was gray and 
sweaty. His eyes were closed. Whatever strength he had left 
was dedicated to fighting the spasms in his gut. A little 
bit of seasickness would kill them both if she released the 
sphere. And if she didn't release it?
    Xantcha tried to make it rise, but lifting the sphere 
had always been something that simply happened as it formed 
and not anything she'd ever consciously controlled.
    "Urza," Ratepe said through clenched teeth. "Urza'll 
come.
    Your heart."
    Urza had come when she'd nearly blown herself up with 
the Phyrexian ambulator, but now she wasn't in any 
immediate danger. The sky overhead was a brilliant blue, 
and the sphere bobbed like a driftwood log.
    "Sorry, Ratepe. If he didn't pull us out of that storm 
we were riding, then he's not going to pull us out of here. 
I'm not close enough to dying to get his attention."
    "Gotta be a way."
    Xantcha peeled Ratepe's sweat-soaked hair away from his 
eyes. He'd said he loved her, in a moment of sheer panic, 
of course, but there was a chance he'd been telling the 
truth. Sexless, parentless newt that she was, Xantcha 
didn't imagine she could love as born-folk did, but she 
felt something for the miserable young man beside her that 
she'd never felt before, something worth more than all her 
books and other treasures.
    "Hold on," she urged, grasping his hand. "I'll think of 
something."
    Xantcha couldn't think of anything she hadn't already 
tried, and the sphere remained mired in the water. The 
waves had lessened, and she enjoyed the gentle movement, 
but Ratepe was as miserable as when the storm had dropped 
them, and by the way he was sweating out his misery, he'd 
be parched before long, too.
    "Come morning, we'll be late," she said as the sky 
darkened. "Maybe Urza will come looking for us, but maybe 
not right away."
    "Can't you ... do something ... to make him look?" 
Ratepe asked.
    A whole sentence exhausted him. He rested with his eyes 
closed. Xantcha tried to tell Ratepe that the motion would 
bother him less if he sat up and looked at the horizon, as 
he'd learned to do when they were soaring. Ratepe insisted 
the motions were totally dissimilar and refused to try.
    "How does . . . Urza know when you . . . need him?"
    "He doesn't," Xantcha answered. "When we were dodging 
Phyrexians we stayed close, but the rest of the time, I 
never gave much thought to needing Urza, and he certainly 
never needed me."
    "Never? Three thousand years . . . and you never . . . 
needed each other?"
    "Never."
    Ratepe sighed and curled around his knees. He began to 
shiver, a bad sign considering how warm the Sea of Laments 
was in the summer. Xantcha tucked their blankets around 
him, then, because she'd worked up a sweat herself, and 
stripped off her outer tunic. It got tangled in her hair 
and in the thong of a pendant she'd worn so long she'd 
forgotten why she wore it.
    "You can hit me now," she said, breaking the thong.
    "What?"
    "I said, you can hit me now ... or you can wait until 
after we find out if this thing still works."
    "What?"
    "A long time ago-and I mean a long time ago-Urza did 
make me an artifact that would get his attention. I used 
something like it just once, before Urza invaded Phyrexia. 
I have to break it."
    That time Xantcha had crushed the little crystal 
between two rocks. This time she tried biting it and broke 
a tooth before it cracked. Waste not, want not. At least 
she'd been farsighted enough to use her back teeth which 
grew back quicker than the front ones.
    That time, between the rocks, there'd been a small 
flash of light as whatever power or sorcery Urza had sealed 
within the crystal was released. This time Xantcha neither 
saw nor felt anything, and when she examined the broken 
pieces, they were lined with a sooty residue that didn't 
look promising.
    "How long?" Ratepe asked.
    "A day before he got there with his dragon."
    Ratepe groaned, "Too long."
    Xantcha was inclined to agree. Urza must have come back 
to the forest before he went after the dragon. He wouldn't 
have taken the chance that the Phyrexians might get away, 
and after he'd finished with the diggers, he'd known where 
the ambulator was. If Urza was going to haul them out of 
the Sea of Laments, they'd be on dry land before moonrise. 
If the crystal hadn't lost its power. If Urza recognized 
its signal and remembered what it meant.
    Those were worries Xantcha kept to herself. The stars 
came out. Xantcha began to fear the worst, at least about 
Urza, and for Ratepe. They had enough food and water for 
two more days. Taking advantage of her newt's resilience, 
Xantcha could get to land either way. She wasn't sure about 
Ratepe.
    It would be a stupid way for anyone to die, but the 
same could be said about most deaths.
    Ratepe fell asleep. His breathing steadied, his skin 
grew warmer and drier. He might be over his seasickness by 
morning; he had adapted to soaring, and there was nothing 
to be gained by premature despair. Xantcha settled in 
around him. It was remarkable that two bodies could be more 
comfortable curled around each other than either was alone. 
She closed her eyes.
    Xantcha woke up with a stabbing pain in her gut, water 
sloshing against her armpits, and Urza shouting in her ear:
    "What misbegotten scheme put you in the middle of an 
ocean!" He had her by the nape of the neck, like a cat 
carrying a kitten, and held Ratepe the same way. The sphere 
was burst, obviously. Xantcha knew she should yawn out the 
armor, but Urza moved too fast. They were a split instant 
between-worlds, a heartbeat longer in the wintry winds of a 
nearby world, then back through the between-worlds to the 
cottage. Xantcha was gasping, mostly because Urza dropped 
her before turning his attention to Ratepe who'd turned 
blue during the three-stride 'walk. She knew his color 
because they'd traveled west and the sun wasn't close to 
setting behind the Ohran Ridge.
    A bit of healing and a few sips from a green bottle off 
Urza's shelves brought Ratepe around.
    "Change your clothes, Brother," Urza commanded in a 
tone that had surely started battles in their long-ago 
nursery. "Wash. Get something to eat. Xantcha and I need to 
talk."
    Mishra, of course, stood his ground. "Don't blame 
Xantcha, and don't think you can ignore me ... again. I'm 
the one who wanted to see Koilos."
    Ratepe pronounced the word in the old-fashioned way. 
Xantcha dared a glance at Urza's eyes, thinking her lover 
was getting advice from the Weakstone. Both of Urza's eyes 
were glossy black from lid to lid. She hadn't seen them 
like that since they'd left Phyrexia, which made her think 
of Oix and the Thran and a score of other things she 
quickly stifled. Xantcha tried to catch Ratepe's eye and 
pass him a warning to tread cautiously, if he couldn't 
figure that for himself.
    With his bold remark, Ratepe had effectively changed 
the landscape of recrimination. If Xantcha could have 
seized control of the argument at that moment, she could 
have guaranteed there'd be no revelations about the fate of 
the Thran. If she could have seized control. She didn't 
catch Ratepe's eye, and Urza had lost interest in her as 
well.
    "Koilos is dead. There's nothing left. We took it all, 
Brother. Us and the Phyrexians," Urza said, leaving Xantcha 
to wonder if he'd visited the cave since his return to 
Dominaria.
    "I needed to see it with my own eyes," Ratepe replied, 
a comment that, considering the circumstances, could have 
many layers of meaning. "You told me to go away for a 
while, so I did."
    "I never meant you to go to Koilos. If it was Koilos 
you wanted, we could have gone together."
    "That was never a good idea, Urza," Ratepe said with 
finality as he walked out the open door, following the 
near-orders Urza had already given.
    "You should have stopped him," Urza hissed at Xantcha 
when they were alone. "My brother is ... fragile. Koilos 
could have torn him apart."
    "It's just another place, Urza," Xantcha countered, 
resisting the urge to add that Ratepe was just another man. 
Neither statement was true. After a year on the Ohran 
Ridge, Ratepe might not be Mishra, but he'd become more 
than a willful, onetime slave.
    " 'Just another place,' " Urza mocked her. "For one 
like you, yes, I suppose it would be. What would you see? A 
cave, some ruins? What did my brother see? He isn't quite 
himself yet. The next one will be better, stronger. I 
expected it would be several Mishras before I'd take one 
back to Koilos."
    "There won't be another Mishra, Urza."
    Urza turned away. He puttered at his worktable, 
scraping up residues and dumping them in a bucket. He'd 
been working on something when the crystal struck his mind. 
Xantcha's anger, always quick to flare, was also quick to 
fade.
    "Thank you for picking us out of the ocean."
    "I didn't know at first. It took me a moment to 
remember what it was that I was hearing. I made that 
crystal for you so long ago, when I still thought I could 
invade and destroy Phyrexia. My ambitions have grown 
smaller. Since Equilor, it's all I can do to protect 
Dominaria from them. I'll make you another."
    "Make it easier to break. I lost a tooth on this one. 
Make one for Ratepe, too."
    "Ratepe?" Urza looked up, puzzled, then nodded. "When 
this is over, when I've exposed the sleepers and put 
Phyrexia on notice that Dominaria is prepared to fight 
them, it will be time to talk about the future. I've 
thought about it while you were gone. This cottage isn't 
big enough. I've begun to envision permanent defenses for 
all Dominaria, for Old Terisiare and all the other great 
islands. Artifacts on a scale to dwarf any that I've made 
before. I'll build them in place, and when I've finished 
one of my new sentries, I'll move on to the next. I'll need 
assistants, of course-"
    "Other than me and . . . ?" Xantcha left her thought 
dangling.
    "What I've planned will take a generation, maybe ten 
before it is complete. And the assistants I have in mind 
will become the guardians of my sentries. They'll become 
the patriarchs and matriarchs of permanent communities. You 
understand that can't include you. As for him, he is 
mortal, not like you or me. We are what the Phyrexians made 
us. I can't change that, or him. I wouldn't, even if I 
could. That would be adding abomination to abomination. But 
he-Ratepe, my brother-will age and die. I thought, I hoped 
you would choose, while you were together these last few 
days, to remain together, with him-"
    "Somewhere else?"
    "Yes. It would be best. For me. For what I have to do."
    Urza wasn't mad, not the way he'd been mad and locked 
in the past for so long. Bringing him face-to-face with 
Mishra had set him free to be the man Kayla Bin-Kroog had 
known: self-centered, self-confident, and selfish, blithely 
convinced, until the world came to an end, that whatever he 
wanted was best for everyone else.
    Xantcha was too weary for anger. "We'll talk," she 
agreed. Maybe she'd tell him what she'd learned at Koilos. 
More likely, she wouldn't bother. Urza was immune to truth. 
"Do you still need either of us, or should we make 
ourselves scarce again?" she asked.
    "No, not at all! I have work for you, Xantcha." He 
gestured toward one wall where boxes were piled high. 
"They've all got to be put in place. I'll 'walk you there. 
You know, it's quite fortunate, in a way, that you broke 
that crystal. I'd forgotten them completely; I'll make up a 
score by dawn. Think of it, no more waiting, no more wasted 
time. As soon as you're finished, you can summon me, and 
I'll 'walk you to the next place!"
    "Tomorrow," she said, heading for the door. Xantcha had 
gotten what she wanted; if she'd been born with true 
imagination, she would have known that getting what she 
wanted wouldn't be the same as what she had expected. 
"Tonight I've got to rest."
    Ratepe was waiting for her in the other room. "Did you 
tell him?"
    Xantcha shook her head. She sat down heavily on her 
stool. The chest with her copies of The Antiquity Wars 
caught her eye. What would Kayla have said? Urza never 
really changes. His friends never really learn.
    "There wasn't any need to tell Urza anything. He's got 
his visions, his future. Nothing I'd tell him would make 
any difference, just like you said. We're going to be busy 
until the Glimmer Moon goes high. I am, at least. He's got 
a pile of spiders for me to plant and great plans for that 
crystal I broke. Watch and see, by tomorrow Urza will have 
decided that it was his idea for us to get stuck in the Sea 
of Laments."
    Ratepe stood behind her, rubbing her neck and 
shoulders. It had taken only a year, after more than three 
thousand, to become dependent on the touch of living 
fingers. She'd miss him.
    "I should've stayed?" he asked. "I hoped if I took the 
blame-if I made Mishra take it-he'd calm down quicker. 
Guess I was wrong."
    "Not entirely. You had a good idea, and you handled it 
well." She shrugged off his hands and stood. "Has Urza ever 
told you that he thinks you're the first of many Mishras 
who're going to walk back into his life?"
    "Never in those words, but, sometimes I know he's 
frustrated with me. Scares me sometimes, because if he 
decided he didn't want me around, there'd be nothing I 
could do about it. But I've gotten used to not having 
charge of my own life. I've forgotten Ratepe. I'm just Rat, 
trying to live another day and not always sure why . . . 
except for you."
    Xantcha studied her hands, not Ratepe's face. "Maybe 
you should think about taking charge of your life again."
    "He's decided it's time for a new Mishra? Do I get to 
help find my replacement?"
    "No." That didn't sound right. "I mean, I'm not going 
to look for another Mishra." She took a deep breath. "And I 
won't be here if another Mishra comes walking over the 
Ridge."
    Ratepe pushed air through his teeth. "He's sending us 
both away because we went to Koilos?"
    She shook her head. "Because my plan worked. Urza's not 
thinking about the past anymore, and you and I, we're part 
of his past."
    "I'll go back to Efuan Pincar, to Pincar City," Ratepe 
spoke aloud, but mostly to himself. "After we expose the 
sleepers and all, Tabarna's going to need good men. If 
Tabarna's not a sleeper himself. If he is, I don't know 
who'll become king, and we'll need good men even more. What 
about you? We could work together for Efuan Pincar. You're 
smarter than you think you are. You leap sometimes, when 
you should think, as if a part of you is as young as you 
look. But you know things that never got written down."
    Xantcha walked to the window. "I am part of the past, 
Ratepe, and I'm tired. I never realized just how tired."
    "It's been a too-long day and the worst always falls on 
you." He was behind her again, rubbing her shoulders and 
guiding her toward the bed.
    Xantcha's weariness wasn't anything that sleep or 
Ratepe's passion could cure, but she wasn't about to 
discuss the point.
    Urza 'walked her to Morvern shortly after dawn. He left 
her with two sacks of improved spiders, explicit 
instructions for where they should be placed, and a plain-
looking crystal he promised wouldn't break her teeth. Four 
days later Xantcha took no chances and crushed the crystal 
between two stones. Una 'walked her to Baszerat, then to 
other sleeper-ridden city-states on Gulmany's southern and 
eastern coasts. There wasn't time, he said, for side trips 
to the cottage. They had eighteen days until the Glimmer 
Moon struck its zenith.
    "What about Efuan Pincar?" she asked before he left her 
and a sack of spiders in the hills beyond another southern 
town. "Will there be time to put the new ones there?"
    "You and him!" Urza complained. "Yes, I've taken care 
of that myself. When the night comes, that's where you'll 
be, in the plaza outside the palace in Pincar City. I 
wouldn't dare suggest any place else! Now, you understand 
what has to be done here? The spiders in that sack, they're 
for open spaces, for plazas, markets, and temple precincts. 
You've got to put them where there are at least twenty 
paces all around. Less and the vibrations will start to 
cancel each other out. And make sure you put them where 
they won't attract attention or be trampled. You 
understand, that's important. They mustn't be trampled. 
They might break, or worse, they'll trigger prematurely."
    They'd come a long way from screaming spiders. Xantcha 
supposed she'd find out exactly how far in Pincar City. 
Until then, "Twenty paces all around, no attention, no big 
feet. How long?"
    "Two days, less, if you can. There are some places in 
the west that we've missed, and it wouldn't hurt to put a 
few across the sea in Argivia-"
    "Urza, we've never even looked for Phyrexians there!"
    "It couldn't hurt, if there's time."
    With that, Urza 'walked away.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    Seventeen days later, the eastern city of Narjabul in 
which Xantcha was planting spiders had begun to fill with 
revelers for the coming mid-summer festival. Finding the 
privacy she needed to plant them was becoming more 
difficult by the hour. At last a tall, blond-haired man 
stepped out of the crowd and said, "I think there's nothing 
more to be done. Let's 'walk home."
    The man was Urza, looking like a man in his mid-
twenties and dressed in a rich merchant's silks that felt 
as real as they looked.
    Xantcha hadn't expected to see him for another day. She 
hadn't felt she could break the crystal before then. "I'm 
nowhere near finished," she confessed. "There aren't enough 
rooms. The crowds just stay on the streets. It's been 
difficult, and it's getting worse. They sleep in the plazas 
where I'm trying to plant the spiders."
    "No matter," Urza assured her. "One spider more or less 
won't win the day, or the night. There's always next month, 
next year."
    He was in one of his benign and generous moods. Xantcha 
found herself instantly suspicious.
    "Has something gone wrong?" she asked. "With the 
spiders? At the cottage?" She hesitated to say Ratepe's 
name.
    "No, no ... I thought you and he might want to 
celebrate. I thought I'd 'walk you both to Pincar City and 
leave you there tonight."
    Urza had his arm draped across Xantcha's shoulder and 
was steering her through the crowd when they were accosted 
by three rowdy youths, considerably worse for the wine and 
ale that flowed freely in the guild tents pitched across 
plaza. The soberest of the trio complimented Urza's wide-
cuffed boots while one of his companions grabbed Xantcha 
from behind and the third tried to steal Urza's coin pouch. 
Xantcha stomped her boot heel on her attacker's instep and 
rammed her elbow against his ribs to free herself.
    The youth, remarkably sobered by his pain, immediately 
shouted, "Help! Thief! He's taken my purse and my father's 
sack! Help! Stop him before he gets away!"
    Xantcha had no intention of running or of surrendering 
the spider-filled sack. She had a fighting knife and could 
have put a swift end to her attacker, but they'd drawn 
attention, and the middle of a mob was a dangerous place to 
make a defensive stand, even with Urza's armor. If she'd 
been alone, Xantcha would have used her sphere and made a 
spectacular exit. She wasn't alone, though, Urza was a few 
steps away in the midst of his own fracas, so she yawned 
out her armor instead and hoped he'd get them free before 
too many revelers got hurt.
    Justice was swift and presumptive. A bystander grabbed 
her from behind again and put a knife against her throat. 
He'd probably guessed that something wasn't quite right 
before she stomped and elbowed him as she'd done with her 
first attacker, but everyone knew she was more than she 
seemed when they saw that the knife hadn't drawn blood. 
Most folk retreated, making ward-signs as they went, but a 
few rose to the challenge. One of challengers, a thick-set 
man in long robes and pounding a silver-banded ebony staff 
against the cobblestones, was also a sorcerer.
    "Urza!" Xantcha shouted, a name that was apt to get 
everyone's attention anywhere in Dominaria. It didn't 
matter what language she used after that to add, "Let's 
go!"
    The sorcerer cast a spell, a serpentine rope of crimson 
fire that fizzled in a sigh of dark, foul-smelling smoke 
when it touched the armor. He'd readied another when Urza 
ended the confrontation.
    Urza had abandoned his merchant's finery for imposing 
robes that made him seem taller and more massive. He didn't 
have his staff-it was absolutely real and couldn't be 
hidden-but Urza the Artificer didn't need a staff. Mana 
flowed to him easily. Even Xantcha could feel it moving 
beneath her armored feet, in such abundance that he could 
afford to target his spells precisely: small, but not 
fatal, lightning jolts for the three troublemakers and a 
mana-leaching miasma for the sorcerer who'd intervened on 
the wrong side of a brawl.
    Then Urza clapped his hand around Xantcha's and 'walked 
with her into the between-worlds.
    "Between us and the spiders, everyone in Narjabul's 
going to remember this year's mid-summer festival," Xantcha 
laughed when her feet were on solid ground outside the 
cottage.
    Urza grimaced. "They'll remember my name. The sleepers 
and who knows what else might get suspicious before 
tomorrow night. I didn't want to be connected with this, 
not yet. I want Phyrexia to know that Dominaria is fighting 
back, not that Urza has returned to haunt them."
    "I'm sorry. I'd had a knife at my throat, there was a 
sorcerer taking aim at me, and a crowd about to get very 
unpleasant. I wasn't thinking about consequences."
    "I never expect you to."
    Ratepe came out of the workroom. They hadn't seen each 
other for seventeen hectic days, but when Xantcha kept her 
greeting restrained, he caught the warning and did likewise 
until they were alone in the other room.
    "Did Urza tell you, we're going to watch the spiders 
from Efuan Pincar!" He lifted Xantcha off the floor and 
spun her around.
    "He said he was going to leave us there."
    Ratepe set her down. "I told him that you'd given me 
your word that I could go back to my old life. I called it 
'the life I had before Mishra awoke within me.' He'd 
started talking about making big artifact-sentries, just 
like you'd said. He didn't quite come out and say that he 
wanted to make room for a new Mishra, too, but I understood 
that's what he meant."
    "I keep thinking about the Weakstone."
    Ratepe shook his head. "If Urza paid attention to the 
Weak-stone, he'd have an aching head, but he's less attuned 
to it now than he was when I got here. He is putting the 
past behind him. I decided to make it easier for myself. If 
he leaves me in Pincar City, I'm no worse off than I was a 
year ago. Better, in fact, since I've learned some 
artifice." Ratepe tried to sound optimistic and failed.
    Xantcha opened the chest where she kept her supply of 
precious stones and metals. "Wouldn't hurt to be prepared." 
She handed him a heavy golden chain that could keep a 
modest man in comfort for life.
    "He'll change his mind about you, Xantcha. He's never 
going to send you away," Ratepe insisted, but he dropped 
the chain over his head and tucked it discreetly beneath 
his tunic.
    Xantcha hauled out coins as well and a serviceable 
knife with a hidden compartment in its sheath.
    "It's the Festival of Fruits," Ratepe protested, 
refusing to accept the weapon.
    "There's going to be chaos for sure and who-knows-what 
for us afterward." She took his hand and lightly slapped 
the knife into it.
    "What about a sword, then?" he asked, eyeing her 
rafter-hung collection.
    "I was wrong to have a sword in Medran. Efuan Pincar 
doesn't have a warrior cult, and your nobility averted its 
eyes about ten years ago. We'll try to be part of the 
crowd. Knives are a common man's weapon."
    "You're nervous?" Ratepe asked with evident disbelief.
    "Cautious. You and Urza, you're acting as if this is 
going to be some victory celebration. We don't know what's 
going to happen, not in a whole lot of ways."
    "You don't want to go?"
    "No. I want to see what happens, and Urza's made up his 
mind. I haven't survived all this time by being careless, 
that's all."
    "You're nervous about being with me? About taking care 
of me, 'cause you think I can't take care of myself?"
    Xantcha pulled up her pant leg and buckled an emergency 
stash of gold around her calf. She didn't answer Ratepe's 
question.
    "I know Pincar City," he said petulantly. "It's my 
home, and I can keep my own nose clean, if I need to. 
Avohir's mercy, it's the damned Festival of Fruits-seven 
days of berries! All music and bright colors. Parents bring 
their children!"
    Unimpressed, Xantcha handed him a smaller knife to tuck 
inside his boot, then closed the chest on her treasures 
wondering if she'd ever look at Kayla's picture again.
 
                        CHAPTER 23
 
    Urza 'walked them to the royal city shortly before 
sundown. Knowing that Pincar was crowded with revelers and 
that the journey would leave Ratepe incapacitated, Urza 
strode out of the between-worlds near the orchard where 
Xantcha had battled the Phyrexian priest. Other than birds 
and insects, there were no witnesses to the trio's arrival. 
Few signs of the previous year's skirmish remained. Trees 
still sported scorched and unproductive branches, and there 
was a gap in the geometric rows where a broken tree had 
been removed.
    Ratepe was stunned and shivering. Urza knelt beside 
him, heal' ing him with warm, radiant hands and saying 
nothing about the small fortune in gold hung around his 
neck.
    "You'll be careful getting over the walls," Urza said 
to Xantcha while Ratepe finished his recovery.
    "Of course," she replied, irritable because she was 
suddenly anxious about entering the city.
    Neither of them had asked her if she wanted to watch 
the spiders scream from the plaza of Avohir's great temple, 
not far from the catacomb where she'd encountered Gix. 
Xantcha knew she would have lied even if they had. She'd 
never told Urza about the demon before, and events had 
moved too swiftly since Narjabul to tell him now. Besides, 
she hadn't expected to be anxious. If the demon had wanted 
to find her, he could have found her. Phyrexian demons were 
many terrible things, but they weren't shapechangers the 
way Urza was. If Gix hadn't pursued Xantcha to any of the 
out-of-way places she'd been since their encounter, she 
didn't expect him to simply appear in the middle of Pincar 
City's crowded plaza.
    "You'll need these," Urza offered her two lumps of 
milk-white wax.
    She hesitated before taking them and asked the 
question, Why? with her eyes.
    "You're vulnerable, and the armor might not be enough 
protection. Plug your ears first. You'll know when, and 
you'll have time. Don't fret about it."
    He must think the spiders themselves were what made her 
jumpy, and he might have been right, if it weren't for Gix. 
"I won't worry," she lied and tucked the wax in the hem of 
her sleeve. Then she asked the question she'd been 
avoiding. "Afterward? Should I break the crystal?" She 
still had the one he'd given her for Narjabul.
    "I'll find you."
    Xantcha dipped her chin. After three thousand years, it 
would end without even a good-bye. She could see Kayla 
frowning in her mind's eye. The Antiquity Wars should have 
prepared her for this.
    Urza 'walked away. She and Ratepe waited silently for 
sundown. Their lives were unraveling, pulled apart between 
the past and future. Xantcha wanted to hold the present 
tight. This past year with Ratepe was as close as she had 
ever come to forgetting that she hadn't been born. She 
sensed that once the present became the past, regardless of 
whatever lay in the future, these moments wouldn't be 
recaptured.
    But when Xantcha looked at Ratepe, staring northwest, 
toward the city of his past and future, she had nothing to 
say to him until the sky darkened and the first stars had 
appeared.
    "It's time," she said.
    They sat together as Xantcha recited her mnemonic and 
the sphere formed around them.
    Country folk who didn't want to pay for a room within 
the city had pitched tents in the fields and fairgrounds 
beyond the walls. Between the smoke from their cookfires 
and a scattering of clouds overhead, Xantcha had no trouble 
getting the them over the walls and above the southeast 
quarter of the city. Ratepe said he knew the area and 
provided directions to a quiet street and the long-
abandoned courtyard of a burnt-out house.
    "You lived here?" Xantcha asked when the sphere had 
collapsed.
    He pointed at a gaping second-story window. "Last I 
saw, it was burning. My mother was yelling at my father, 
telling him to carry me and forget about his precious 
books."
    "Did he?"
    "Yes." Ratepe put his arm on a charred door. It opened 
partway, then struck a fallen roof beam. "We weren't poor. 
I'd've thought that by now someone would've taken advantage 
of our misfortune."
    Xantcha took his hand, tugging him toward the alley 
that led back to the street. "Remember how you said 
everything was smaller since Urza's war? Everything's even 
smaller in Pincar City."
    She and Urza weren't the only ones letting go of their 
pasts. Xantcha could almost hear Ratepe's disillusionment 
as they made their way to the wide plaza between the royal 
palace and Avohir's temple. There were as many empty houses 
as occupied ones, and those that were inhabited had 
shuttered windows, despite the summer humidity. Their doors 
were strapped with iron.
    Ratepe didn't see anyone he might have recognized 
because they didn't see anyone at all. The sounds of the 
festival came filtered over the rooftops, along with the 
faint scent of sleepers, but the neighborhoods were locked 
tight.
    When they got to the great plaza between Tabama's 
palace and Avohir's temple, they understood why, and saw 
why so many festival-goers had chosen to pitch tents 
outside the city walls. The crowd was sullen and mean-
spirited, looking for fights and, by the sounds of it, 
finding them with each other. Most of them were men dressed 
as Ratepe and Xantcha were dressed in the nondescript 
garments of the countryside. The few women whom Xantcha 
could see didn't appear to be anyone's wife, mother, 
daughter, or sister-not quite the family gathering Ratepe 
had promised.
    He didn't said a word when the crowd surged and parted, 
giving them a glimpse of eight grim-faced men coming 
through a palace gate, headed for Avohir's temple. The men 
were uniformed in black-dyed leather and chain mail, except 
for their sleeveless surcoats, which bore a broad red 
stripe above the hem. Two of them carried torches that 
could double as polearms, the other six carried short 
halberds-wicked weapons with a crescent ax facing one 
direction and a sharpened gut-hook going the other way. 
Xantcha knew the kind of damage such weapons could do 
against a mostly unarmored mob; she hoped she wasn't going 
to witness it again.
    The crowd reformed in the Red-Stripe wake, watchful and 
not quite silent. Someone muttered fighting words, but not 
loud enough for Red-Stripe ears. That would come later. 
Xantcha figured her hopes were futile. Both sides wouldn't 
be satisfied with anything less than bloodshed.
    "I-I don't know what's happened," Ratepe stammered. 
"Sleepers?"
    He wanted an affirmative answer, which Xantcha couldn't 
give. There was oil in the air, the smell faint and mostly 
coming from the temple or the palace, both still secure 
within their separate walls. "We happened," Xantcha 
replied, as grim as the Red-Stripe faces. "We made sure the 
truth got out, didn't we? These are all your folk, Ratepe, 
ordinary Efuands, the ones who got caught up with the Red-
Stripes and the ones who didn't. Now everybody's got a 
grudge."
    Screaming spiders and Phyrexians would just get in the 
way.
    "I was afraid of what would happen if we just took out 
the Red-Stripes and the Phyrexians, but this is worse than 
I imagined it could ever be," Ratepe said. His hand rested 
momentarily on her shoulder, then fell away.
    Closer to the temple, the plaza erupted in shouts and 
screams. Ratepe succumbed to gawking curiosity as he eased 
past Xantcha for a better look at the skirmish. She grabbed 
his arm and rocked him back on his heels.
    "Unless you know a better place with food and beds," 
she snapped, "I say we go to ground in your family's old 
courtyard." They were traveling light on everything but 
gold. "This will be calmer come daylight, or the whole city 
could be in flames," she added.
    Without much confidence, Ratepe said that the better 
inns were on the western side of the plaza. Xantcha, who 
hadn't eaten since the previous night in Narjabul, was 
game, though she had to grab Ratepe's arm again to keep him 
from striking off through the middle of the plaza.
    "Forget you ever knew this place, all right? Pay 
attention to what you see, not what you remember," she 
advised as they headed north, toward the sea and the 
palace.
    They were on the cobblestones near the Red-Stripe 
barracks, doing their best not to attract attention, when 
the temple gongs rang out. This time Xantcha expected the 
worst and would have bolted for any shadow large enough to 
contain the sphere if Ratepe hadn't held her back.
    "There's a procession every night," he said. "That's 
what everyone's here for, what they're supposed to be here 
for. The high priests march the Book around and put it on 
the dais until midnight."
    Xantcha noticed the hulking white-draped platform in 
the middle of the plaza for the first time. "Every night?" 
she asked, thinking of tomorrow night when the spiders 
would scream.
    Ratepe nodded.
    She nodded, too, seeing to the heart of his requests. 
"You've been thinking about this from the moment Urza 
started talking about exposing the sleepers with the 
Glimmer Moon! So, why, exactly, put shatter spiders on the 
altar?"
    "Because the Book won't be there when the altar's 
destroyed. I figured it would shame the Shratta, whatever's 
left of them and I wanted the Shratta shamed at the same 
time the Red-Stripes were exposed. I didn't expect Red-
Stripes to be leading the procession."
    He cocked his head toward the temple where what he'd 
described was happening: the same eight armed men they'd 
seen earlier marched at the head of a short parade whose 
focal point was an ornately shrouded litter bearing 
Avohir's holy book. The tome's container was borne on the 
shoulders of four priests, at least one of whom reeked oil. 
Xantcha glanced up at the sky.
    The Glimmer Moon had risen, but though she knew the 
habits of the larger moon and its phases, she'd always 
regarded the smaller moon as a nuisance, sometimes there, 
sometimes not, never welcome. She didn't know if it rose 
earlier or later each day and wasn't completely clear on 
the whole "striking its zenith" moment that Urza was 
counting on.
    "They just carry the Book out to the dais and then 
carry it back at midnight? A couple thousand paces. You're 
not hoping for something to happen while they're carrying 
it, are you?" If Ratepe had wanted to shame the Shratta, 
she couldn't imagine anything more effective than having a 
sleeper collapse while the holy book's litter was sitting 
on his shoulder.
    "No," Ratepe replied, but before he could specify which 
question he'd answered, the nearest palace gate swung open. 
More armed and armored Red-Stripes emerged.
    A sleeper marched in the second octet. He passed so 
close that Xantcha was sure she knew which of the eight it 
was: a cleanshaven young man, not apparently much older 
than Ratepe and not handsome either. His mouth and nose 
were too big for his face, his eyes too small. When he 
turned and stared, Xantcha's blood cooled. She forced her 
head to remain still and her eyes to lose focus. He might 
not be able to tell she'd been watching him. Xantcha held 
her breath, too, though that surely was too late. When the 
octet had passed, she started walking again.
    The dais was still unburdened when they reached the 
western plaza where the guild inns, each a little fortress, 
stood behind their closed-gate walls. Ratepe handled the 
negotiations with the guild guards while Xantcha watched 
the procession go round and round the plaza. The joint 
guild of barbers and surgeons had a room behind the kitchen 
for which they wanted an exorbitant amount of copper and 
silver but not in any of the forms Xantcha or Ratepe 
carried it. Fortunately-but not, she suspected, 
coincidentally- there was a money changers' booth butted up 
against the barber's watchtower.
    "Festival robbery," Ratepe said dramatically as he 
collected the devalued worth of a golden ring. "Tabarna 
shall hear of this!"
    "Avohir, he knows," the money changer replied, pointing 
to the lead seals dangling from a silk ribbon overhead.
    The room behind the kitchen had been let to another 
traveler. They wound up in a dust-choked garret that 
Xantcha was sure had been home to a flock of pigeons 
earlier in the day.
    "The food will be good," Ratepe promised once they'd 
claimed their quarters.
    "Don't say another word. You've been wrong about 
everything else. If you keep quiet now, the meal may at 
least be edible!" She was jesting, resorting to the rough 
humor that worked well on the Ohran Ridge and floundered 
here in the city.
    But the food was good. They devoured roast lamb with 
sweet herbs, a thick grainy paste that tasted of nuts and 
saffron, honey-glazed bread, and an overflowing jug of the 
berry wine served only for the Festival of Fruits. It 
wasn't worth the silver they'd paid for it, but it was good 
nonetheless, and they hauled the remaining wine up to the 
top of the stairs when they were finished.
    The garret overhung a blind alley, but a bit of 
acrobatics put them on the roof and gave them one of the 
better views of the plaza that Pincar had to offer. A 
breeze stirred the humid air, making it pleasant. In the 
plaza, Avohir's book remained open on the dais. Red-Stripes 
stood guard while priests took turns reciting Shratta 
verses from memory-or so Ratepe said. Their voices didn't 
reach the top of the guild inn.
    The crowd had thinned, and what remained had settled in 
around ten or fifteen campfires scattered across the 
cobblestones. Red-Stripes stood guard outside the palace 
and the temple. Xantcha wondered who held the allegiance of 
the men who guarded the inns. Not that it mattered 
overmuch. The sky was open to her sphere if they had to get 
away in a hurry.
    "This is a good place," she decided. "We can see 
everything that's important, and there's nothing to block 
the sphere if we need it. We'll watch tomorrow night from 
here."
    They stayed on the roof until the temple gongs sounded 
again at midnight and the Red-Stripes escorted the huge 
holy book into Avohir's sanctuary.
    "What do they do if it rains?" Xantcha asked as they 
swung and slipped back to the garret.
    If the roof had been pleasant, their rented room was a 
prison. Leaving the windows open had attracted swarms of 
buzzing, biting insects without improving the air. The 
excuse for a bed smelled as if its last occupant had been a 
corpse, and a summertime corpse at that. Xantcha seriously 
considered yawning out the sphere, if only for Ratepe's 
sake. She'd breathed Phyrexian air, the ultimate standard 
by which foul air should be judged, and survived without a 
wheeze or cough. Poor Ratepe was sneezing himself inside 
out and short of breath. In the end they dragged the best 
of the blankets up to the roof and bedded down beneath the 
stars.
    The day they'd been waiting for began before dawn with 
more gongs clanging from the temple as the Festival of 
Fruits started its fourth day. When the city gates opened, 
the tent encampments disgorged their pilgrims who were, on 
the whole, far less hardened than the men who'd held sway 
in the plaza at night. There were children and flower 
sellers and all the other things Ratepe remembered from his 
own childhood. He coaxed Xantcha out of the garret for 
bowls of berries and a second visit to Avohir's great 
sanctuary.
    The line of petitioners waiting for Avohir to dry their 
tears was prohibitively long and the cloister passage to 
the priests' quarters and, ultimately, the crypt where 
she'd confronted Gix was closed off and guarded by the 
burliest Red-Stripes she'd seen since arriving in the city. 
They glistened with oily sweat, but they weren't Phyrexian.
    "I can't believe they're all gone but that one I 
scented last night with the litter," Xantcha mused when 
Ratepe had finished taking her on a brief tour of the 
sanctuary. "Maybe Gix had pulled the sanctuary sleepers 
back. It doesn't take much practice to be a bully like a 
Red-Stripe, but a priest has to do things right."
    "You put the spiders where they live-"
    "I'd feel better if I'd seen that they were still in 
place."
    "We'll find out soon enough," Ratepe replied with the 
sort of fatalism Xantcha herself usually brought to any 
discussion.
    They were on the temple porch, looking down at the 
plaza from a different angle and gazing north at an 
afternoon storm. There was time for one more bowl of 
berries before the storm swept over the palace. Xantcha was 
indifferent to sweets, but Ratepe would have eaten himself 
sick. She saw what they did with Avohir's book when it 
rained. A team of priests who'd obviously worked together 
before scrambled to get the great book closed and covered 
with a bleached sail.
    "It's going to get wet and ruined sooner or later," she 
pointed out as she and Ratepe climbed the five flights of 
narrow, rickety stairs to the garret.
    "Sooner."
    "But isn't it too precious to be mistreated like that?"
    "It used to be there was a new Book every five years. I 
think the one they've got is maybe older than that. But 
it's not any one specific copy of the Book that matters, 
it's the idea of Avohir's book and the wisdom it contains. 
When a new Book's brought into the temple, the old one is 
cut up and passed out. Some people say if you burn a piece 
of the Book on New Year's Day, you'll have a better year, 
but some people-my father, for one-kept his scraps in a 
special box." Ratepe fell silent and stared out the window 
at the rain.
    "Lost?" Xantcha asked.
    "We brought it with out of the city. I didn't even 
think about it after the Shratta." He went back to staring.
    "Should I buy a duck?" Xantcha asked, quite serious.
    "A duck?"
    "Six days after the Festival of Fruits, you'll be 
nineteen. I made sure I remembered. You said your mother 
roasted a duck."
    "We'll see after tonight."
    The festival crowds never recovered from their 
afternoon soaking. Hundreds of Efuands had returned to 
their tents beyond the walls, and the rowdy, mean-spirited 
element took over the plaza long before the midsummer sun 
was ready to set. Xantcha and Ratepe were spotted standing 
on the roof, silhouetted by the sun. The innkeeper, a man 
as burly as the sanctuary Red-Stripes reminded them in no 
uncertain terms that they'd rented the garret. For an 
additional two silver bits they rented the roof as well. 
The innkeeper offered to send up supper and another jug of 
berry wine.
    Xantcha had had her fill of berries. They ate with the 
other guests in the commons, another leisurely, overpriced 
meal, then retreated to the roof for the spectacle. The 
western sky was blazing, and there were two brawls in the 
plaza, one strictly among the revelers, the other between 
the revelers and what appeared to be a cornered pair of 
Red-Stripes. A different, more strident set of gongs was 
struck, and a phalanx of mounted warriors thundered out of 
the palace, maces raised and swords drawn.
    She couldn't decipher the details of the skirmish from 
the rooftop, but it wasn't long before three corpses were 
dragged away and a handful of men, bloodied and staggering, 
were marched into the palace. One of the prisoners wore an 
empty sword belt. He wasn't a Red-Stripe; that besieged 
pair had vanished back into the cadres. By his straight 
posture and arrogant air, even in defeat, the prisoner 
looked to be a nobleman, the first of that breed Xantcha 
had seen since arriving in Pincar City.
    The nobleman's appearance crystallized a conclusion 
that had been lurking in Xantcha's thoughts. "Efuan Pincar 
has lost its leaders," she suggested to Ratepe. "Wherever I 
look, whether at the Red-Stripes, the temple, or that mob 
down there, I don't see anyone taking charge. If there are 
leaders, they're giving their orders in secret and then 
watching what happens from a distance, but they're not 
leading from in front."
    Ratepe had an explanation for that absence. "Efuan 
Pincar's not like Baszerat and Morvern and places like that 
where every man, woman and child answers to a lord. Our 
Ancestors left that way behind at the Founding. It's 
written in Avohir's book. We have a season for making 
decisions, wintertime, when the harvest's been gathered and 
there's time to sit and talk-"
    " Where's your king? Where's Tabarna? When I came here 
twenty years ago, he was visible. If there'd been riots 
outside his palace, the way there've been last night and 
tonight, he'd have been out here. If not him, then someone, 
a high priest, a nobleman, even a merchant. There were men 
and women who could speak louder than the mob. Look down 
there. Folk have been killed, and there's no true reaction. 
There's anger everywhere, but nobody's gathering it and 
turning it into a weapon."
    "Efuands aren't sheep. We think for ourselves." Ratepe 
countered quickly, a reply that had the sound of an 
overleamed lesson.
    "Well, it's strange, very strange. It's not like 
anything I've seen before, and that doesn't happen very 
often. And it's not the way Efuand Pincar was twenty-odd 
years ago. Your king or someone would be visible. Efuands 
may not be sheep, Ratepe, but without leaders to stop them, 
I don't wonder that the Red-Stripes and Shratta were able 
to cause such trouble for you."
    "Are you saying Phyrexians were with the Shratta and 
the Red-Stripes from the start?"
    Ratepe was incredulous, sarcastic, but as soon as 
Xantcha thought about her answer, she realized, "Yes, I am. 
I found Gix in Avohir's crypt, but I probably could have 
found him in the palace just as easily."
    "Do you think he's still here?"
    "He might be. That passageway I saw wasn't like an 
ambulator. But Gix was too big to chase me up the stairs. 
If he's here, he's not going to come walking through the 
sanctuary doors."
    Ratepe said nothing as the sunset aged from amber to 
lavender. Then, in little more than a whisper, he said, "In 
the war, Urza and Mishra's war, the Brotherhood of Gix made 
themselves useful to both sides. They pretended to be 
neutral. Neither Mishra nor Urza questioned them, but they 
answered to Gix, didn't they? The Gix in Avohir's temple. 
The Gix who made you. He controlled the brotherhood, and 
the brotherhood manipulated the brothers. Avohir's sweet 
mercy, Gix-the Phyrexians-did control that war. Kayla Bin-
Kroog said never to forget the mistakes we made, but she 
didn't suspect the real rot. . ." His voice trailed off, 
then returned. "It's happening again, isn't it? Here and 
everywhere. And nobody's seeing it come."
    "Urza has." Xantcha let out a pent-up breath. "Urza's 
mad in a thousand different ways, but he does remember, and 
he has learned. He knows to fight this war differently. He 
knows not to make the old mistakes. I've been listening to 
him, but I wasn't watching him. Urza lies to himself as 
much as he lies to you or me, but that hasn't stopped him 
from doing what has to be done. Until now. I've got to go 
back, Ratepe, after tonight. I've got to find him and tell 
him about Gix and about the Thran. There's a part of him 
that needs to know-deserves to know-everything that I 
know."
    "You won't go alone, will you?"
    "Efuan Pincar's going to need true leaders."
    "True, but for Efuan Pincar's sake, Urza needs a Mishra 
that I can trust."
    The Glimmer Moon was the evening star this midsummer 
season, far brighter than the star Ratepe called the Sea-
Star and Xantcha called Berulu. It pierced the deepening 
twilight like a faintly malevolent diamond. Every world 
that Xantcha remembered where sentient races came together 
to talk and create societies, folk looked overhead and 
recited myths about the stars, the moon, and the wanderers.
    Gulmany was no exception, but the Glimmer Moon was. It 
was bright, it wandered, everybody saw it, everybody knew 
it, and by some unspoken agreement, nobody included it in 
their myths. Like a loud, uninvited guest, the Glimmer Moon 
was acknowledged across the island with averted eyes and 
silence.
    Even knowing what an important part it would play this 
evening, neither Xantcha nor Ratepe could look at it for 
long, and the pall it cast effectively ended their 
conversation.
    Other, friendlier stars made their nightly appearance. 
Avohir's gongs clanged to announced the holy book's 
procession from the sanctuary altar to the white-draped 
dais. Xantcha found herself breathing in painful gasps, 
expecting the spiders to scream while the litter was in 
transit. She clutched Urza's waxen lumps in her fists and 
had the mnemonic for his armor on the edge of her mind. But 
the Glimmer Moon didn't strike its zenith in the night's 
early hours.
    She couldn't truly relax after the book was on the dais 
and the priests had begun to recite whatever passages 
tradition declared appropriate for the fourth night of the 
Festival of Fruits. The memory of her one exposure to the 
spiders kept her nerves jangled. Urza had been steadily 
increasing the range and power of his tiny artifacts. What 
if the combination of wax and armor weren't enough? The 
level part of the roof where they stood was a small square, 
three paces on a side, twelve in all, which she traced, 
first to the left, then to the right.
    "Stop pacing, please!" Ratepe begged. "You're making me 
nervous, and you're making me dizzy."
    Xantcha couldn't stand still, so she slid over the edge 
of the roof and into the garret, where the usable pacing 
area was somewhat smaller. She'd worked up a clinging sweat 
before thousands of insects got between her ears and her 
mind. She put the wax plugs into her ears and got Urza's 
armor out of the cyst within a few heartbeats, but not 
before she was gasping on the floor.
    Ratepe appeared in the garret window just as she'd 
recovered enough to stand. He grabbed her hand. Xantcha 
could feel his excitement, but she'd become deaf even to 
her own voice. They didn't need words, though, to return to 
the roof where Ratepe's swinging arm showed her where to 
look for already fallen sleeprs.
    They'd gotten lucky, she thought, observing in sterile 
silence. Some of the Efuand Red-Stripes must have known 
there were Phyrexians within their cadres. How else to 
explain the swiftness with which the standing Red-Stripes 
distanced themselves from their fallen comrades or, in one 
instance that unfolded in the torch-lit area in sight of 
the guild inn's roof, turned their weapons on one of their 
own?
    From the beginning Ratepe had been concerned with the 
problem of how unaffected folk might interpret the sleeprs' 
collapse. The issue seemed to be resolving itself more 
favorably, if also more violently, than either he or 
Xantcha dared hope.
    She could see men and women whose mouths were moving, 
and she wished she could ask Ratepe what they were 
shouting. Probably she could have asked; it was the hearing 
of the answer that no wish could grant her.
    The first of the shatter spiders did its damage as a 
section of the Red-Stripe barrack collapsed. She could see 
the destruction from the roof, which was higher than the 
first of several walls that encircled the palace. The folk 
in the plaza wouldn't have seen anything, but they might 
have heard the walls fall, or the inevitable shouts as 
flames poked through the rubble. Overturned lamps and such 
finished what the shatter-spiders had begun.
    In all, Xantcha thought, it was going very well. She 
was surprised that Ratepe wasn't visibly jubilant. She 
tried to ask him with gestures and the old hand code that 
she and Urza had devised and that, lacking foresight of 
this moment, she'd failed to teach him. Ratepe pointed 
toward Avohir's temple, where the shatter-spiders had yet 
to produce any obvious damage and no priests, sleeper or 
otherwise, were visible in the pools of torchlight.
    Could Gix have ordered a search that had removed her 
handiwork? The Phyrexian presence in Avohir's temple had 
been noticeably less tainted with the glistening oil scent 
when Xantcha had made her second visit to Pincar City and 
all but absent this past afternoon.
    But if the demon had scoured the temple walls, wouldn't 
he have checked the Red-Stripe barracks, too, or the plaza 
itself? Were compleat Phyrexians truly lacking in 
suspicious imagination?
    There was a flurry around the dais. The holy readers 
were no longer reciting, and other priests had joined them, 
getting in one another's way as they closed the great book 
and made haste to get the litter poles beneath it. That 
would explain Ratepe's distress. He didn't want Avohir's 
book inside the sanctuary when-if-the altar collapsed.
    But there was more she should worry about: Red-Stripes 
cadres had spilled from the barracks and the temple. They 
began, ruthlessly, to restore order in the swirling crowd. 
Their only opposition came from those other Red-Stripes 
who'd turned on the disabled sleepers when the spiders 
began to scream. It seemed that some sleepers and 
Phyrexians hadn't been affected by Urza's artifacts or, 
even more incredibly, that some Efuands had so embraced 
Phyrexian aspirations that they pursued them even after the 
Phyrexians had fallen.
    Xantcha grabbed Ratepe's sleeve and made him face her.
    "What's happening down there?" she demanded. "Is it 
over? Can I unplug my ears?"
    He shrugged helplessly and, consumed by frustration, 
Xantcha stuck a finger in one ear.
    The spiders hadn't stopped screaming, and breaking the 
seal that protected her from their power was an instant, 
terrible mistake. Xantcha lost all awareness and sense of 
herself until she was on her back. Ratepe knelt over her, 
pressing his fingers against her ears. One hand was bloody 
when she felt strong enough to push them both away. Ratepe 
helped her stand.
    The situation had changed in the plaza. Some of the 
second wave of Red-Stripes had succumbed to the spiders' 
screaming. They were literally torn apart by the Efuand 
mob, and gruesome though that was to watch, it was also 
instructive. The resistant Red-Stripes were more compleat 
than Xantcha or the already fallen sleepers. Beneath their 
seemingly mortal skins they had bones of metal, wired 
sinews, and veins that spilled glistening oil onto the 
cobblestones.
    The oil did truly glisten in malevolent shades of green 
and purple until someone discovered, as Urza had discovered 
a very long time ago, that glistening oil burned.
    A slow-moving question that was not her own passed 
through Xantcha's mind, and Ratepe's, too-he staggered and 
might have fallen from the roof, if Xantcha hadn't grabbed 
him. Across the plaza, most Efuands were not so fortunate, 
though they had less far to fall. All whom Xantcha could 
see shook themselves back to their senses and stood up 
unharmed. None of the Efuands, including Ratepe, could know 
what had happened, but Xantcha, who knew a demon's touch 
when she felt it, looked for a strand of ruby red light and 
found it sweeping through the smoke above the burning oil.
    Gix.
    Xantcha's hand rose to her throat. She broke the 
crystal. Ratepe watched her do it; he asked questions she 
couldn't hear, and she answered with the demon's name.
    Avohir's sweet mercy! She read the prayer from Ratepe's 
lips.
    In the plaza, the frantic priests of Avohir had finally 
slung the litter poles beneath the holy book in position to 
carry the volume back to the sanctuary. That building had 
still to show any signs of damage from the shatter'Spiders. 
The sanctuary might not show such damage to observers on 
the guild-inn roof. They hadn't expected or intended to 
bring the great outer walls down, merely the altar and a 
dormitory cloister behind the sanctuary. And, of course, 
the spiral stairway down to the crypt.
    Xantcha didn't know whether to relax or ratchet her 
apprehension tighter when the priests successfully 
navigated through the plaza throng, and Avohir's holy book 
disappeared into the sanctuary. Ratepe was obviously more 
anxious, but his lips moved too quickly for her to read his 
words, even after she'd asked him to slow down and speak 
distinctly.
    Then something happened to make Ratepe put his hands 
over his ears. All across the plaza, Efuands hitherto 
unaffected were reacting to a painful noise, but there were 
no Red-Stripes-no Phyrexians-to take advantage of them. All 
of them, sleepers and compleat, those already dead and 
those still alive, simply exploded, bursting like sun-
ripened corpses. Sound, as Urza had promised, with the 
power to shake glistening oil until it pulled apart. The 
Glimmer Moon had struck its zenith. Everything until that 
moment had been mere forewarning.
    Xantcha's whole body tingled from the inside out. If 
Urza's armor failed, she'd be dead before she knew she was 
endangered. She tried to imagine the scenes in all the 
other cities where she and Urza had planted the spiders. 
Born Dominarians on their knees, as Ratepe was, perhaps 
spattered with blood that glistened malevolently in the 
moonlight. All of them wondering if it were their turn to 
die.
    The Red-Stripe barracks collapsed and, through her 
feet, Xantcha heard the ground wail. A cloud of dust as 
large as the guild inn billowed through sanctuary doors, a 
cloud that rose quickly to hide the temple and half the 
plaza from Xantcha's view. When dust had settled some, she 
and every Efuand saw that the great dome above the altar 
and the gong tower-shadows in the night moments earlier-
were both missing.
    From his knees, Ratepe lowered his hands and pounded 
the roof with his fists. A god who couldn't protect his 
book or his sanctuary was apt to lose the faith of his 
worshipers. Xantcha didn't know the depth of Ratepe's 
faith, but she guessed it had been shaken to its roots.
    It was shaken further when an intense red glow filled 
Avohir's sanctuary, overflowing through the open doors, the 
windows, and the roof. Xantcha saw the wotd fire on 
Ratepe's lips, but the light wasn't fire. It was Gix.
    Xantcha broke the chain that had held Urza's pendant 
around her neck. She held the crystal up in the crimson 
light. Very clearly, it was broken and, just as clearly, 
Urza wasn't coming. He hadn't said where he'd go to watch 
the Glimmer Moon strike its zenith. He could have gone to 
the Glimmer Moon itself or he could have remained in the 
Ohran Ridge cottage.
    Or Urza's absence could mean that Gix was not the only 
demon on Dominarian soil and that Urza was already in a 
desperate brawl. Urza could 'walk anywhere, but even he 
couldn't be in two places at once.
    The red light within Avohir's sanctuary grew brighter, 
larger. It fluctuated and emitted serpentine flares that 
faded slowly in the night. The smell of Phyrexia grew 
steadily stronger. Xantcha imagined Gix burning and 
battering his way up from the catacombs. She wondered if he 
had the power to destroy a city and didn't doubt for a 
heartbeat that the demon would, if he could.
    There was nothing Xantcha could do to stop Gix, and 
until she was sure that the spiders were exhausted, there 
was nothing she dared do to spirit herself and Ratepe away.
    Vast crimson fingers leapt from the roofless sanctuary. 
They soared into the sky, then arched toward the plaza. 
Looking up, Xantcha and everyone else saw that the fingers 
were hollow, filled with darkness and fanged like serpents. 
The darkness resembled the upright passageway to Phyrexia 
that she'd seen in the crypt. Xantcha feared they'd all be 
sucked into the Fourth Sphere. Ratepe put his arms around 
her, and Xantcha wrapped hers around him. She wanted to 
feel his warm, mortal flesh with her fingers and wouldn't 
have cared if the spiders killed her, except that she 
wouldn't force Ratepe to watch her die.
    She saw a ribbon of silvery light emerge from the 
center of palace. Diving and soaring, the palace light 
pierced each serpent and drew them all together with a 
choking knot before dragging them over the north wall and 
out to sea.
    Xantcha shouted, "Urza!" at Ratepe who needed a few 
more heartbeats before he could shape his lips around the 
name.
    Gix fought back, but as Xantcha had always suspected, 
Urza was more than a match for a Phyrexian demon ... or a 
Thran one. Neither duelist was visible from the plaza or 
the roof, though they each knew exactly where the other 
was. They fought with light and fire, with artifacts and 
creatures that defied naming in any language Xantcha knew. 
Gix would have lost quickly if the demon had not aimed most 
of his destruction at the Efuand survivors in the plaza and 
thereby forced Urza to defend the innocent.
    Then Urza loosed two weapons at once: bolts of 
lightning to counter Gix's last cowardly thrust and a 
dragon shaped like the one he'd ridden into Phyrexia, but 
shaped from golden light. Stars shone through the dragon's 
wings, but its power was anything but illusory. A jet of 
intense blue fire shot from its mouth as it began a stoop 
that would take it into Gix's sanctuary lair.
    Gix didn't die fighting; nor did he retreat to 
Phyrexia. Instead he abandoned Pincar City altogether: a 
relatively small green-gold streak racing to the south, a 
half-breath ahead of the dragon's flame.
    Xantcha expected the dragon to pursue Gix over the 
horizon, but it continued its stoop into the ruined 
sanctuary. She braced herself for the physical shock wave 
of a crash that never came. A heartbeat, and another, and 
the dragon lifted into flight again, showing first its 
wings, then its spidery torso, and at last, clasped in a 
pair of legs, a book that recently had seemed very large 
and now looked quite small. The dragon beat its translucent 
wings twice for altitude. Then it stooped again and set 
Avohir's holy book on the battered dais before climbing 
back into the sky.
    The dragon circled out to sea-Avohir's home according 
to myth-and the Efuands still standing, including Ratepe, 
set up a cheer in its wake, but Urza wasn't finished. He 
brought the dragon back (Xantcha would have sworn he shrank 
it just a bit, too) for a gentle glide over the palace 
roofs. Through its bright, shifting light, Xantcha wasn't 
sure it had picked something up until it was almost 
overhead and she could see a frail old man getting the ride 
of his life.
    It was a miracle of another sort that Tabarna's heart 
didn't fail before the dragon set him down beside Avohir's 
book. The dragon flew straight up after that and 
disappeared among the stars.
    The Efuands who'd cheered the survival of their book, 
went wild when they saw their king. Xantcha couldn't get 
Ratepe's attention no matter how hard she pounded his back 
or how loudly she shouted, "Is it over? Can I release 
Urza's armor?"
    Yes, it's over, Xantcha. Urza's voice spoke to 
Xantcha's thoughts.
    You heard! she replied, releasing the armor and pulling 
the wax out of her ears. You came! The cheers of the crowd, 
after total silence, were as deafening as the spiders.
    Xantcha had trouble hearing Urza when he said, still in 
her mind, I've been here all along, keeping my eyes on Gix. 
I didn't want to frighten you.
    Waste not, want not. How long had Urza known?
    Xantcha hadn't kept her thoughts private. Urza pulled 
the question from her mind and answered it. Since the 
priest in the orchard. I went back to all the haunted 
places. I saw how the Phyrexi-ans had crept into my world 
again. I found Tabama in a ceil beneath the palace-he was 
quite mad, but still himself. The Phyrexians needed to trot 
him out periodically, and they could only do what they did 
to Mishra because he carried the Weakstone. So I stole 
Tabarna from them and hid him on another plane.
    That, I confess, was the act that brought Gix here to 
Pincar City. Since then, everything I've done-everything 
I've had you do-has been building toward this moment. I 
healed Tabama. Madness, you know, sinks deep roots in a 
man's soul once he's seen sights and thought thoughts no 
man should see or think. There are some moments he'll never 
remember again, moments such as I wish I could forget, 
Xantcha. The Shratta could not be deceived, so they were 
killed while Tabama watched. But he'll live another ten 
years and sire another son or two. I guarantee it.
    Xantcha had warned her slave, assume that if you've 
thought about it Urza knows it. Then she had failed to 
remember her own advice.
    "You've had reason to be suspicious, Xantcha. There's 
never been anyone who could do for me what I've done for 
Tabarna."
    Urza was on the roof with them, looking very ordinary. 
He had no trouble getting Ratepe's attention but was 
unprepared when Ratepe threw himself into a joyous, tearful 
embrace.
    The affection Efuands had for their elderly king-whose 
speech none of them could hope to hear through their 
shouting- was nothing Xantcha wanted to understand, though 
it was also clear that Urza had done exactly what was 
necessary to insure that the realm would recover from its 
long battering.
    Xantcha stood a bit apart from Ratepe and Urza, giving 
herself a few moments to consider all that she'd just 
learned. She stayed apart when Urza extended his hand.
    "What happens next?" she demanded thinking deliberately 
of Gix.
    "I go to Koilos."
    She folded her arms. "Not alone. Not if you're going 
after Gix."
    Urza frowned, then sighed. "No, I suppose not." He 
turned to Ratepe. "And you, Brother, I suppose you'll want 
to come, too."
 
                        CHAPTER 24
 
    The sun just had risen over the Kher Ridge, far to the 
east of Gulmany island and Efuan Pincar. It would be a 
summer day with clear air and high clouds that wouldn't 
come close to raining on these desert-dry stones. Koilos, 
the Secret Heart, was on the other side of the mountain 
where Xantcha and Ratepe rested, waiting for Ratepe to 
recover from the three-step 'walk from Pincar City. Urza 
was already at the cavern. He'd sworn he wouldn't go 
looking for Gix until they arrived, unless Gix came looking 
for him.
    Ratepe sat on the ground, chafing his arms and legs 
against the morning chill and the shock of healing.
    "You think he knows everything?"
    Xantcha had just finished telling him what had passed 
between her and Urza on the guild-inn roof not an hour 
earlier. She was impatient to yawn out the sphere and get 
into the air, even though she knew there'd be no part for 
her or Ratepe to play in the coming fight. More than three 
thousand years ago she'd watched as other demons thrust Gix 
down a fumarole to punishment that had proved less than 
eternal. She expected Urza to do a better job and wanted to 
watch him doing it.
    "He's still calling you Mishra."
    Ratepe nodded several times. "True enough. But he was 
something in the sky last night over Pincar City-a little 
while ago- whenever. I got used to the idea that he was the 
crazed, foolish man who lived on the other side of the 
wall. I let myself forget what I knew he was, through the 
Weakstone. He was the man who came within an hour of 
destroying the world."
    "You weren't the only one," Xantcha confessed. "You 
ready to finish this?"
    "All in a morning's work," Ratepe joked grimly as he 
stood. "Avohir's mercy, I should be happy. I am happy, but 
inside, I feel like I felt after I saw my father dead, or 
when we were falling through that storm over the ocean and 
we were floating in your sphere. I don't feel a part of 
anything that's around me. If I ask myself what happens 
next, there's nothing there, not even a sunrise."
    Xantcha replied, "Urza 'walked us under the sun. That's 
why we missed the sunrise, and I'll try not to drop the 
sphere through a storm again.'' She left Ratepe's other 
observations behind on the ground as the sphere flowed 
around them and lifted them into the air.
    Urza waited not far from the place where Xantcha had 
read the Thran glyphs. He was taller than any mortal man 
and clad in his full panoply with robes armored in the 
colors of sorcery. His hand circled the gnarled wood of a 
war staff capped with a peculiar blue-gray metal. His eyes 
were hard and faceted, as if he'd see nothing so puny as 
flesh, but his voice was strong and vibrant when he greeted 
them.
    "Gix is here, waiting for me."
    The scents of Phyrexia were indeed in the air: 
glistening oil, Fourth Sphere fumes, and the malevolence 
Xantcha recognized as Gix. She yawned out her armor while 
Urza laid hands on Ratepe's shoulders. The young Efuand 
glowed like swamp water once they entered the cavern. 
Sunlight ended ten paces into the upper, glyph-covered 
chamber. Urza's war staff emitted a steady light from the 
edges of its many blades. The light reached to the glyph-
covered walls.
    "Phyrexian, you say?" Urza asked.
    "Close enough. Do you want to read them through my 
eyes?"
    "Not yet. After. I've waited too long to taste 
vengeance against the Phyrexian who destroyed my brother. 
It's hard enough to know that Gix is one of the Thran, one 
of the ones who got away, I don't want to know the rest, 
not yet. And once I know it, then I'll decide if it's worth 
remembering. I have much to do, Xantcha. I cannot always 
embrace the truths that might be written on stone walls. I 
know that's been hard for you, but it's been even harder 
for me."
    The ultimate confession from the crazed and foolish man 
who lived on the other side of the wall?
    They continued to the rear of the chamber, where Ratepe 
had spotted a passage. Without torches or powerstone eyes, 
he had been unable to explore it. The passage sloped 
steeply downward and was marred by deep gouges in the 
stone. Xantcha walked on Urza's left, a half-pace behind. 
Ratepe held a similar place on Urza's right.
    "We took everything," Ratepe whispered, softly, but in 
Koilos a whisper carried like a shout. Urza didn't tell him 
to be quiet, so Ratepe continued. "The chamber below, where 
we found the stones, we stripped it bare. We needed the 
metal. At the end we were so desperate for metal, any 
metal, that we opened tombs and took the grave goods from 
our dead and fueled our smelters with their bones."
    "So did we," Urza assured him. "So did we."
    Xantcha saw light ahead, the harsh, gray light of 
Phyrexia.
    The second chamber of Koilos was as large as the first 
and empty, except for Gix who stood somewhat behind dead 
center. Xantcha expected some preliminary taunting and 
boasting, but neither Urza nor Gix was a young mortal with 
an itch for glory. They'd come to kill or be killed. All 
their whys had been buried long ago.
    Gix attacked first as they emerged from the passageway. 
He didn't waste time or effort with side attacks against 
Xantcha or Ratepe. They weren't innocents with rights to 
Urza's protection. They'd come of their own free will, and 
they'd be meat, at best, if Urza failed to win.
    The rubine gem in the demon's bulging forehead shone 
bright. A thumbnail-sized spot of the same color appeared 
on Urza's breast. Heartbeats later, a boulder, Urza high 
and Urza wide, bilious green and glassy, stood where Urza 
had stood between Xantcha and Ratepe. The boulder blew 
apart an instant later. Fists of stone hammered Xantcha 
from face to toes and threw her back against the chamber 
wall. Ratepe was on the floor, covered in a thick layer of 
dust. Two counterspinning coils of fire and light whirled 
around the demon until he spread his arms to vanquish them.
    An ambulator took shape, closer to Urza than to Oix. 
The ambulator heaved and rotated upward, sprouting a toothy 
hole of a mouth and many viscous, reaching arms. An arm 
came close enough to Xantcha that she judged it prudent to 
put a little distance between herself and the duel. She 
scuttled crabwise along the curving chamber wall and was 
relieved to see Ratepe do the same on the other side.
    Urza spoke a word, and the ambulator-creature became a 
sooty smear. He did nothing at all that Xantcha could see, 
and yet Gix was slammed against the chamber's far wall. A 
crystal sarcophagus surrounded the demon. Xantcha thought 
that might be the end, but purple fumes rose from the 
crystal, and Urza disappeared as manic wailing filled the 
barren chamber. Gix shook off the dissolving crystal and 
clambered to his metallic feet.
    Xantcha took heart from the fact that the demon wasn't 
claiming victory by targeting her or Ratepe. His oddly 
shaped head swiveled frantically. The rubine light danced 
over the naked stone, leaving a trail of smoke as Gix 
sought a target. Twice the demon blew futile craters in the 
rock, but he was ready when ghostly blue arms seized him 
from behind. Urza landed on his back in the middle of the 
chamber. The impact shook jagged stones the size of a man's 
torso from the ceiling.
    Both combatants righted themselves and backed away from 
each other.
    The testing phase was over; the duel began in earnest 
with flurries of attacks that ebbed and flowed too fast for 
Xantcha's eyes. The demon was stronger, cleverer, and much 
more resilient than she'd believed after seeing him flee 
the dragon in Pincar City. She thought of the excoriation. 
It had taken a clutch of demons to wrestle Gix into that 
fumarole. She suspected that he was the only one who'd 
survived.
    Urza succeeded in melting away one of Gix's legs, 
though that was little more than inconvenience in a battle 
that wasn't about physical injury. And though Urza seemed 
to have the advantage more often than not, he couldn't 
deliver a killing attack. Not that he didn't try a in a 
hundred different ways from elemental ice to conjured 
beasts and the ghosts of artifacts he and Mishra had 
wielded against each other. Gix countered them all, 
sometimes barely, with an equally bewildering assortment of 
arcane memories and devices.
    Eventually, when it had become apparent that neither 
flash nor guile was going tilt the balance, Urza and Gix 
locked themselves in a contest of pure will that manifested 
itself in an increasingly complex web of blue-white and 
crimson light. The spindle-shaped web stretched between 
Urza's eyes and Gix's gem-studded forehead. At its widest, 
which was also its middle and the middle of the chamber, 
the web did not descend to the floor. Sparing nothing for 
effect, the web gave off neither heat nor sound and 
endured, without really changing, until Xantcha had to 
breathe again.
    How long, she asked herself, could they remain enrapt 
in each other? Her best answer: for a very long time. She 
got up on her feet.
    "Look at Urza's eyes!" Ratepe shouted from the other 
side of the chamber.
    Xantcha had to walk closer than she considered wise 
before she found a slit in the web that let her look down 
the spindle to Urza's face. She didn't see anything 
strange-nothing stranger than two specks as bright as the 
sun-but she didn't have Ratepe's rapport with the 
Weakstone. And, as Ratepe's voice had seemed to have no 
effect on the duel, she asked, "What am I looking for?"
    "You can't see everything changing . . . coming back 
from the past, or going back to it?"
    She started to say that she couldn't see anything 
changing and swallowed the words. Shadows were growing in 
the Koilos chamber. Not shadows cast by the web's light, 
but shadows cast by time, growing more substantial as each 
moment passed. Metal columns grew along the walls. Great 
machines, worthy of Phyrexia, loomed up from the floor.
    Beneath the widest part of the light-woven spindle a 
low platform came into being. Mirrors sprang up in a circle 
behind both Gix and Urza, behind Xantcha and Ratepe, as 
well. An object similar to Avohir's great book, but made 
from metal like Urza's staff, grew atop the platform. As 
Xantcha watched, Phyrexian glyphs formed on the smooth 
metal leaves.
    Xantcha was waiting for those glyphs to become legible 
when dull-colored metal sprang out of the central platform. 
The metal shaped itself into four rising prongs, like 
uplifted hands.
    "His eyes, Xantcha! His eyes! They're going back. Gix 
is dragging them back through time!"
    The Weakstone and the Mightstone had pulled out of 
Urza's skull and were advancing through the spindle. Gix 
had said, The Thran are waiting.... And when the 
powerstones merged into the prongs, Urza would be in the 
hands of the Thran. Ratepe shouted, "We can stop them." 
"No." "We can!"
    "Not if you're getting influence from the Weakstone. 
It's Thran. It belongs to Gix. No wonder he was waiting 
here." Xantcha would have sobbed, if the armor had let her.
    "We can stop this, Xantcha. Gix is sending the 
powerstones into the past. All we have to do is get there 
first."
    Xantcha shook her head-never mind that she couldn't see 
Ratepe. "That's the Weakstone influencing you," she 
shouted. "Gix. Phyrexia." Her gut said anything she did 
would only make things worse, if anything could be worse 
than watching Urza become a tool of the Phyrexian Thran. 
She was paralyzed, frightened as she had never been before-
except, perhaps, at the very beginning when the vat-priests 
told the newts Listen, and obey. "Meet me in the light, 
Xantcha!"
    On the other side of the spindle, Ratepe thrust his 
hands into the web. From Xantcha's side, looking into the 
spindle, his flesh had become transparent and his bones 
gleamed with golden light.
    "Now, Xantcha!"
    The powerstones had traveled half the distance to the 
prongs. The etched-metal glyphs were legible, if she could 
have concentrated and read them. She walked to the right 
place, the place opposite Ratepe, then hugged herself 
tightly, tucking her hands beneath her arms, lest she move 
without thinking.
    "I need to be sure!" she shouted.
    "Be sure that Gix wants the Weakstone and Mightstone, 
not you and me. At least we can give him what he doesn't 
want. It's all we've got to give."
    Xantcha reached for the spindle. The light repelled 
Urza's armor. A good omen or a bad one? For whom? She 
didn't know and tucked her hands beneath her arms again.
    "I can't, Ratepe. I'm Phyrexian. I can't trust myself. 
I'm always wrong."
    The powerstones were three-quarters of the way. The 
devices beyond the ring of mirrors thrummed to life.
    "I'm not! And I'm never wrong about you. Meet me in the 
light, Xantcha. We're going to end the war."
    Xantcha shed her armor and thrust her hands into the 
spindle.
    Begone! Listen and obey. Begone! Do not interfere.
    The demon's anger, roaring through Xantcha's mind could 
have been deception. Gix should have known that she would, 
in the end, disobey his command, in which case Gix had 
outwitted them all and wanted her to reach into the light. 
But, on the chance that he wasn't quite that imaginative, 
Xantcha extended her arms to their fullest reach.
    Time and space changed around her. She'd left her body 
behind. To the right, the Weakstone and the Mightstone, two 
great glowing spheres, rolling toward her, fighting, 
losing. To the left was the unspeakable, blood-red maw of 
Gix, calling the stones, sucking them to their doom.
    Straight ahead stood Ratepe, son of Mideah, with a 
radiant smile and outstretched arms.
    Their fingers touched.
    Gix turned his wrath on her and on Ratepe. It was the 
last thing the demon did. Xantcha felt the stones free 
themselves to destroy the enemy they'd been created to 
destroy.
    As for her and Ratepe, they were together.
    Nothing else mattered.
    And Rat's face, joyous as they embraced, was a glorious 
sight to carry into the darkness.
 
                      * * * * *
 
    For Urza, the battle had ended suddenly, in a matter of 
moments and without easy explanation. One moment Mishra and 
Xantcha had been blocking the light, arms outstretched and 
reaching toward each other, not him. The next moment-less 
than a moment-a fireball had filled the lower chamber. Once 
again his eyes had lifted him out of death's closing fist. 
His Thran eyes had guarded this cavern for four thousand 
years before he and his brother found them, and they still 
preferred to see it in its glory, filled with engines, 
artifacts and powerstone mirrors.
    Or should he say his Phyrexian eyes?
    It scarcely mattered. Urza's borrowed eyes preserved 
him as the fireball raged like a short-lived sun.
    The sun-ball consumed itself. . . quickly, Urza 
thought, though he remembered Argoth and that the time he'd 
spent completely within the powerstones could not be 
measured. As his eyes recorded it, there was fire and then 
the fire was gone, two edges of the cut made by an 
infinitely sharp knife, without a gap between them.
    There'd been no visions, as there had been the other 
times when the Mightstone and Weakstone had held him in 
their power. No explanations, however cryptic. Nothing, 
except a dusty voice that said, It is over. He had a sense, 
much less than a vision, that Mishra had grasped Xantcha's 
hand just before the explosion consumed them.
    In the aftermath silence reigned. A natural silence: 
Urza wasn't deaf, but there was nothing left to hear. Urza 
thought light, and it flowed outward from him.
    "Xantcha," he called, because he'd been without his 
brother before.
    Her name echoed off the chamber's scorched walls. He 
was alone.
    At the end, she'd chosen Mishra, charming, lively 
Mishra.
    Urza wished them joy, wherever they'd gone. He wished 
them peace, far away from any Phyrexian or Thran design. 
They had earned peace, vanquishing their shared enemy: Gix.
    The demon had vanished within the powerstone-derived 
fireball. There was nothing left. Urza's eyes told him 
that. He could hear them now, faint and smug in his skull.
    The truth was written on the upper chamber ceiling. The 
Thran had fought among themselves, fought as only brothers 
could fight, with a blindness that transcended hatred. 
Remembering the battle the Weakstone and Mightstone had 
shown him the last time he'd come to Koilos, Urza realized 
he truly did not know which army had escaped to Phyrexia, 
if, indeed, Xantcha's Ineffable hadn't slipped away to 
create Phyrexia before that fatal day.
    Standing in the Koilos cavern, Urza concluded that he'd 
have to continue his experiments with time because he'd 
have to go back himself, not to a moment in his own 
lifetime, but to the Thran, Gix and all the others. ...
    "Not yet," Urza cautioned himself.
    This would be a cunning war. Gix was still extant in 
the past; Yawgmoth and the other Phyrexians were in the 
past, the present, and the future, too. The battle-the real 
and final battle for Dom-inaria-had, in a sense, just 
begun. It would be fought in the past and in the future.
    And Urza would have no allies, none at all: not Tawnos, 
not Mishra.
    Urza recalled light and moved along the blackened 
corridor to the surface. No real body. No real need for 
light, or anything else.
    A weight tugged against him.
    Xantcha's heart, which the powerstones, his eyes, had 
preserved.
    He wasn't alone.
    Urza would never be alone.