Planeswalker

by Lynn Abbey

  "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. Especially the 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 are still wise priests in Pincar, I think. The Shratta 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 Art
ificer, 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.