Planeswalker (35 page)

"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.

"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?"