by Lynn Abbey
"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.
"A
nd 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-threeand, 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 f
amily 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.