Planeswalker (31 page)

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.

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-itshands,
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.