by Lynn Abbey
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.