Planeswalker (9 page)

Assor grunted; he'd heard of the place. "Good land for
flocks and herding, not so good for grain-growing."

"Not so good for city-bred boys, either," Rat added.
"But the Shratta didn't bother us. At least they didn't
bother us any more than they bothered everyone else. We

paid their tithes and lived by the book and thought we were
lucky."

Xantcha clenched her teeth. In all the multiverse,
there was no curse to compare with feeling lucky.

"I'd taken two sheep to the next village, to a man who
didn't need sheep, but he had a daughter... ." Rat almost
smiled before his face hardened. "I missed the Shratta as I
left, and it was over when I returned. All Gam was dead:
butchered, the men with their throats slit, the women
strangled with their skirts, the children with their skulls
smashed against the walls... ." Rat's voice had
flattened, as if he were reciting from a dull text, yet
that lack of expression served to make his words all the
more believable. "I found my father, my mother, my brother
and sister. I shouldn't have looked. It would have been
better not to know. Then I ran to the next village, but I
was too late there as well. Everybody I knew was dead. I
wanted to join them. I wanted to die, or join the Red-
Stripes, if I could get to Avular. I knew the way, but the
slavers found me the second night."

Either Rat told the painful truth or he was a stone-
cold liar. The farmer had no doubts. He cursed the Shratta,
then the Red-Stripes, and having already heard Xantcha's
false tale earlier in the day, invited them both into his
family.

Xantcha declined. "We have family awaiting us in the
south." The wagon was rolling west. "It's time for us to
take our leave. Past time ... we should have taken the last
crossroads."

Both Xantcha and the farmer looked to Rat, who
hesitated before shucking off the straw and baskets that
had concealed his fetters.

"Good work," Xantcha whispered while the farmer
scuttled about, filling one of the baskets with food.

"He's a good man," said Rat.

The farmer presented them with the basket before
Xantcha could challenge her companion's resolve. Xantcha
returned the homespun cloak.

"Walk fast," he said, then remembered Rat's fetters.
"Try. There's been no trouble this close to Medran, but we
all lay close after sundown. The moon's waxed; there'll be
light on the road.

When you get south to Stezine, ask for Korde. He's the
smith there. Tell him you rode with me, with Assor, his
wife's brother-by-marriage. He'll break that chain on his
anvil. Luck to you."

Xantcha hoisted the basket and started walking,
glancing back over her shoulder after every few steps.

"He didn't believe you," Rat chided.

"He didn't believe either of us."

"He believed me because I told the truth."

"So did I," Xantcha countered.

Rat shook his head. "Not to me, you haven't. Urza,
Mishra, dead uncles, and ransomed cousins. You're a lousy
liar, Xantcha."

She let the provocations pass. They walked until the
wagon had rolled from sight, and then Xantcha stopped. She
set down the basket and faced Rat with her fists on her
hips.

"I saved your life, Ratepe, that's no lie. All I've

asked in return is that you help me with Urza. It doesn't
matter if you believe me, so long as I can trust you."

"You bought me. You can make me do what you ask, but
I'll fight you, I swear it, every step of the way. That's
what you can trust."

"I ransomed you."

"Ransom? Avohir's mercy, you said I was your cousin-do
you think Tucktah believed that? You're a bold liar,
Xantcha. That's not the same as a good one. Tucktah sold
me, you bought me. I'm still a slave. Don't bother being
kind. I won't love you, and I will escape."

Xantcha sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically. Rat
accepted the invitation by lunging for her throat. If it
had been a fair fight, Xantcha would have gone down and
stayed down. Rat's reach was half an arm longer than hers,
and he weighed nearly twice as much. But Rat hadn't been
fed enough to maintain the muscles on his long bones, and
Xantcha was a Phyrexian newt. Urza said she was built like
a cat or a serpent, slippery and supple, impossible to pin
down or keep unbalanced.

Rat had her on her back for a heartbeat before she
threw him aside. While he rose slowly to his knees, Xantcha
sprang to her feet. She snapped her fingers.

"There ... you're free. As simple as that. You're no
longer a slave. I ask you to honor what I have given you,
and help me with Urza. When you've done that, in a year,
I'll return you to this place. I give you my word."

"You're a moon cow, Xantcha. Your parts don't fit
together: fine clothes, a sword, gold nari from Morvern,
and this Urza of yours. Avohir's mercy-what do you take me
for?"

Rat tried to side step around her, but his fetters
insured that his strides were shorter than hers. After a
few more failed evasions, Xantcha seized his wrists.

"You were going to die, Ratepe."

"Maybe, maybe not-" Rat had the reach, the leverage to
free himself, and as soon as he had an opportunity, he
grabbed for the slave goad tucked in Xantcha's belt.

"Throw it down," Xantcha warned. "I don't want to hurt
you."

Rat laughed and played his fingers over the rod's
smooth black surface. A shimmering, yellow web sprang from
its tip. "You can't hurt me. You can save yourself from
getting hurt by dropping your purse and your sword on the
ground, turning around, and following that wagon."

Xantcha eyed the web. She could feel its power where
she stood, but it had belonged to Garve. Tucktah wouldn't
have given her dim assistant a goad that could seriously
damage the merchandise. With a frustrated sigh, she gave
Rat one last chance. "You owe me your life. Make peace with
me and be done with it."

Rat rushed her, raising his arm for a mighty blow that
Xantcha easily eluded. She stomped one foot on his chain,
then put her fist in his gut. He tried to move with the
punch but lost his balance when the chain tightened. He
fell hard, leading with his forehead and losing his grip on
the slave goad. Xantcha grabbed the goad and broke it.
Despite the numbing, yellow light that oozed over her arms,
she hurled both pieces far into the brush beyond the road.
She retrieved the farmer's basket.

Rat had levered himself onto one elbow and was trying
to rise further, when she shoved him onto his back again.
She put the food basket on his stomach then knelt on his
breastbone.

"All right, you win. You're a slave, and you'll do what
I tell you to do because I can make you."

Xantcha inhaled deeply. She ran through her mnemonic
rhyme, then she yawned. The sphere was invisible but not
imperceptible. Rat screamed as it flowed around him.

"Don't even think about trying to escape," Xantcha
warned.

Weight wasn't a problem. Xantcha could have carried a
barrel of iron or lead back to the cottage. Size was
another matter. The sphere grew until it was wide as her
outstretched arms. Then it stiffened and began to rise. Rat
panicked. The sphere lurched and shot up like an arrow,
throwing them against each other, the basket, and the
scabbard slung at Xantcha's side.

There were too many things competing for Xantcha's
attention. She eliminated the largest distraction by
punching it in the gut. They were less than a man's height
over the ground when she got everything steadied. Rat
breathed noisily through his wide-open mouth, even after
they'd begun to soar gently westward. He'd pressed himself
against the bubble. His arms were sprawled, and his palms
were flat against the sphere's inner curve. Nothing moved
except his fingers, which clawed silently, compulsively: a
cat steadying itself on glass.

Xantcha tried to sort out the tangle of legs, cloak,
and overturned basket at the bottom of the sphere, but her
least move pushed her companion toward panic. A nearly full
moon showed faintly above the eastern horizon; she'd
planned to soar through well into the night. That would
have been unspeakably cruel, and though she was tempted-her
forearms ached where the slave-goad's sorcery had
surrounded them-she resisted the temptation.

The sphere swung like a falling leaf in the cooling
night air- a pleasant, even relaxing movement for Xantcha,
but sheer torture for Rat, who'd begun to pray between
gasps. Xantcha guided them slowly to the ground near a
twisting line of trees.

She warned him, "Put your hands over your face now. The
sphere's skin will collapse against you when it touches the
ground. It vanishes more quickly than cobwebs in a flame,
but for that moment when it covers your mouth and nose,
you'll think you're suffocating."

Rat moaned, which Xantcha took as a sign that he'd
heard and understood, but he didn't take her advice. He
clawed himself as he'd clawed the sphere. There were bloody
streaks across his face before he calmed down.

"There's a stream through the trees. Wash yourself.
Drink. You'll feel better afterward." Xantcha stood over
him, offering an arm up, which, predictably, he refused.
She gave him a clear path to the stream and another
warning: "Don't think about running." He was gone a long
time. Xantcha might have worried that he'd thrown himself
in if she hadn't been able to hear him heaving his guts
out. She'd kindled a small fire before he returned- not
something she usually did, but born-folk often found solace
in the random patterns of flames against darkness. Rat was

shivering and damp from the waist up when he returned.

"You need clothes. Tomorrow, I'll keep an eye out for
another town. Until then-" she offered her cloak.

It might have been poison or sorcery by the way Rat
stared at it, and he shrank a little when he finally took
it.

"Can you eat? You should try to eat. It's been a hard
day for you. The bread's good and this other stuff-" she
held up a long, hollow tube. "Looks like parchment, tastes
like apricots."

Another hesitation, but by the way he tore off and
chewed through a finger's length of the tube, Xantcha
guessed the sticky stuff might once have been one of his
favorite treats.

"There's more," she assured him, hoping food might be a
bridge to peace between them.

Rat set the apricot leather aside. "Who are you? What
are you? The truth this time-like Assor said. Why me? Why
did you buy me?" He took a deep breath. "Not that it
matters. I've been as good as dead since the Shratta came."

"I must be a lousy liar, Rat, because I haven't lied to
you. I'm Xantcha. I need you because Urza needs to talk to
his brother, and when I saw you among the other slaves
outside the tavern, I saw Mishra."

Rat stared at the flames. "Urra. Urza. You keep saying
Urza. Do you mean the Urza? Urza the Artificer? The one who
was born three thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven
years ago? Avohir's sweet mercy, Xantcha, Urza's a legend.
Even if he survived the sylex, he's been dead for thousands
of years."

"Maybe Urza is a legend, but he's certainly not dead.
The sylex turned the Weakstone and the Mightstone into his
eyes; don't look too closely at them when you meet him."

"Thanks, I guess, for the warning, but I can't believe
you. And if I could, it would only make it worse. If there
were an Urza still alive he'd kill me once for reminding
him of his brother and again because I'm not Mishra. I'm no
great artificer, no great sorcerer, no great warrior. Sweet
Avohir, I can't even fight you. The way you overpowered me
and broke Tucktah's goad ... and that sphere. That I
don't understand at all. What are you, anyway? I mean,
there are still artificers-not as good as Urza was supposed
to have been, and not in Efuan Pincar, but Xantcha, that's
not an Efuand name. Are you an artifact?"

Of all the questions Rat might have asked, his last was
one for which Xantcha had no ready answer. "I was neither
made nor born. Urza found me, and I have stayed with him
because he is ..." She couldn't finish that thought but
offered another instead: "Urza blames himself for his
brother's death, the guilt still eats at his heart. He
won't fight you, Rat."

They both shivered, though the air was calm and warm
around the little fire.

Rat spoke first, softly. "I'd always thought the one
good thing that came out of that war was that the brothers
finally killed each other. If they hadn't, it never would
have ended."

"It was the wrong war, Rat. They shouldn't have fought
each other. There was another enemy, the Phyrexians-"

"Phyrexians? I've heard of them. Living artifacts or

some such. Nasty beasts, but slow and stupid, too. Jarsyl
wrote about them, after the war."

Rat knew his history, as much of it as had been written
down, errors and all. "They were there at the end of the
war, maybe at the beginning-that's what Urza believes. They
killed Mishra and turned him into one of their own; what
Urza fought was a Phyrex-ian. He thinks if he'd known soon
enough, he could have saved his brother and together they
could have fought the Phyrexians."

"So the man you call Urza thinks that he could have
stopped the war." Rat stared at Xantcha across the fire.
"What do you think?"

He had Mishra's quick wit and perception.

"The Phyrexians are back, Rat, and they're not slow or
stupid. They're right here in Efuan Pincar. I could smell
them in Medran. Urza's got the power to fight them, but he
won't do anything until he's settled his guilt with
Mishra."

Rat swore and stared at the stars. "These Phyrexians .
. . Tuck-tah and Garve?"

"No, not them. They were with the Red-Stripes. I
smelled them."

He swore a second time. "I'd've been better off staying
where I was."