Planeswalker (17 page)

Urza intervened. "Child, what are you doing?"

"I'm not a child," she reminded him. "They brought me

here to extract an army. If it's gone, then you may be
right that no Phyrexian will return. If it's not..."
Xantcha went back to work.

"You'll be digging forever," Urza pulled her aside.
"There are better ways."

For a moment, Urza stood stock-still with his eyes
closed. When he opened them, they blazed with crimson
light. A swirling cloud, about twice his height, bloomed in
the air before the cave's sealed mouth. He spoke a single
word whose meaning, if it had any, Xantcha didn't know, and
the cloud rooted itself where she had been digging.

Fascinated, Xantcha attempted to put her hand in the
small, bright windstorm. Urza touched her arm, and she
could not move.

"We will come back tomorrow and see what is to be seen.
Meanwhile, we will find food-it has been too long since I
have enjoyed a meal-and you will begin telling me
everything you remember."

Urza took Xantcha's wrists and pulled her into the
between- worlds before she could recite her armor-releasing
rhyme. The journey lasted less than a heartbeat, less than
an airless breath. They emerged in what Urza called a town,
where Xantcha found herself surrounded by born-folk: all
flesh, like her, all different, too, and chattering a
language she couldn't understand. He took her to an inn,
gave orders in the born-folk language, told her to sit in a
chair as he did, to drink from a cup and to use a knife and
fork rather than her fingers when she ate.

It was difficult, but Urza was adamant. Xantcha ate
until the knife, at least, was comfortable in her hands.

Later, there was music, exactly as Xantcha had dreamed
it would be, and dancing which she would have joined if
Urza had not said:

"Too soon, child. Your eyes are open, but you do not
truly see."

When the music and dancing had ended, Urza led her from
the inn to the night and through the between-worlds to the
forest. He was gone when Xantcha awoke, long after sunrise.
The scent of glistening oil was stronger, wafting down from
the cave. She remembered the knife and wished she still had
it in her hand, even though it would have been useless
against a Phyrexian ... or Urza.

Urza was inside the cave, and so were most of the
artifacts. Tiptoeing to the brink of an excavation trench,
Xantcha watched Urza dismantle one of the insect warriors.
He was faster and more powerful. When its mandible claws
closed over his ankle, they shattered. Antennae whips
burned and melted when they touched his face.

Perhaps one dragon would be enough, if it was Urza's
dragon, with Urza sitting between its shoulders.

Xantcha cleared her throat. "They're coming back. They
wouldn't have left all this behind. Waste not, want not,
that's our way."

Urza leapt into the air and hovered in front of her.
"The Phy-rexian way is not your way, Xantcha, not anymore,
but otherwise, yes, I believe you're right. I'm ready for
them tomorrow, though let us hope it isn't so soon. With
time to study these automata, I'll be more than ready for
them, Xantcha. These could almost be Thran design. They're
pure artifice, no sentience at all, but perfectly adaptive.

Look!" He held up a pearlescent ring. "A powerstone that
isn't a powerstone. There is water in here, light, and
simple mana, the essence of all things. I shall call it
phloton, because it burns without consuming itself. It will
give me power for my dragon! More power than I ever
dreamed! I shall redesign it!

"Vengeance, Xantcha. I shall take vengeance for both of
us. When the Phyrexians return, I will destroy them and
pursue them all the way back to Phyrexia itself."

Urza got his wish. The Phyrexians didn't return to the
cave the next day, or the next after that. Seasons passed,
and years. He dismantled the insect warriors, incorporating
their parts into his redesigned dragon, linking their ring-
shaped hearts into a single great power source.

Ten years passed, ten Domination years, according to
Urza who claimed his attachment to his birth-world remained
so strong that at any time he knew the sun's angle and the
moon's phase above the cave he called Koilos, the Secret
Heart.

"Come," Urza said one winter morning when Xantcha would
have preferred to remain in her nest of pillows and
blankets. "It is finished."

He held out his hand and, with a rhyme and a yawn,
Xantcha clasped it. No more screaming through the between-
worlds. She'd mastered her fears and the cyst in her
stomach. Although she dwelt mostly in the forest where the
Phyrexian portal had been laid out and where a cottage with
a chicken coop and garden now stood Urza had insisted that
she accompany him to every new world he discovered. Her
nose for Phyrexians was indisputably better than his.

There were no Phyrexians on the world where Urza had
built and rebuilt his dragon. There was no life at all and
never had been. Una's new dragon wasn't much taller than
the old one, but he'd borrowed from the insect-warriors.
The new dragon had a spider's eight-legged body. Any two of
the eight legs could be the "front" legs, and any three
could be destroyed without unbalancing it.

The many-toothed head remained from the dragon's
previous incarnation, but the short arms had been
lengthened, and the torso rotated freely behind whichever
pair of legs led the rest. In addition to gouts of blazing
naphtha, the new dragon spat lightning bolts and spheres of
exploding fire.

"Phloton," Urza said, rubbing his hands together.
"Unlimited power!"

Urza demonstrated each weapon, and though Xantcha still
thought a hundred lesser war machines would be more
effective, she was awed by the destruction Urza's new
dragon brought to the barren, defenseless world. The sky
was streaked with soot and dust. Slag lakes of amber and
crimson pocked the plains. Everything that wasn't molten
had been charred. It reminded her of nothing more or less
than Phyrexia's Fourth Sphere, and she didn't think even a
demon could stand against it. There was only one not-sosmall
problem.

"It's too big. It won't fit through an ambulator." "It
won't need an ambulator. It can walk the planes directly.

Even you could guide it safely." "I wouldn't know where to
go."

Xantcha had conquered her fears, but no matter how hard
she tried, she couldn't orient herself in the between-
worlds emptiness. Worlds-planes-didn't call out to her the
way they called out to Urza. If she lost her grip on Urza's
hand, she fell like a stone to whatever world would have
her. Urza's armor kept her alive through one failure after
another, until Urza conceded that she'd never 'walk the
planes.

"You won't have to do anything at all," Urza assured
her. "After I've used the ambulator once, I'll know where
Phyrexia is, and I'll 'walk the dragon there. You'll wait,
safe and snug, until I return. Now, watch!"

Between blinks, Urza shifted from beside Xantcha to the
dragon's saddle-seat. It came to life. No, not life,
Xantcha reminded herself, never life! The dragon was an
artifact, the tool of Urza's vengeance against the
abominations of Phyrexia. Never mind that its eyes went
from dark to blazing or that a ground-shaking roar
accompanied each lightning bolt. The dragon was merely a
tool that took aim at an already blackened hill and reduced
it to slag in less time than it would have taken Xantcha to
eat her breakfast.

"Do you still have doubts?" Urza asked when he'd
returned to her side.

"Mountains don't defend themselves."

Urza took her words for a jest. His laughter rang
between-worlds as he whisked her back to the forest
cottage.

With the dragon finished, there was little to do but
wait for the Phyrexians to return, and for Urza, waiting
was difficult. Though he'd long since pried every story she
was willing to tell from her memory, he continued to quiz
her. How high were the First Sphere mountains? Where were
the Fanes, the arenas? Which priests were the most
dangerous and where did they dwell? Were the iron wyverns
solitary creatures or pack hunters? In the Fourth Sphere,
were the furnaces clumped together or did each stand alone?
And were the fumaroles wide enough to allow his dragon to
descend directly to the interior, or would he have to
dismantle Phyrexia like a puzzle box?

Worse than the questions were the nights, about one in
four or five, when Urza closed his eyes. Urza's terrible
dreams were too large for his mind. His ghosts walked the
forest when he slept, recreating a silent drama of anger
and betrayal. Xantcha had built the cottage to protect
herself from his dreams, but no wall was thick enough to
insulate her from his anguish.

Urza's call for vengeance was something a Phyrexian
could understand. From the beginning Xantcha's life had
been full of threats and reprisals, broken promises and
humiliation, but Urza needed more than vengeance. When his
nightmares reached their inevitable climax, he'd cry out
for mercy and beg someone he called Mishra to forgive him.

Urza wouldn't talk about his nightmares, which got
worse once the dragon was complete. He wouldn't answer
Xantcha's questions about the ghosts or their world or,
especially, about Mishra, except to say the Phyrexians
would pay for what they'd done to Mishra, or through

Mishra-Xantcha couldn't be sure which. Whenever she dared
mention the nightmare name, Urza would fly into a bleak
rage. Ten or twelve days might pass without a word, without
even a gesture. Then, without warning, he'd rouse from his
stupor, and the questions would begin again.

Xantcha began to look forward to the times when
restlessness got the better of Urza and he'd head off
between-worlds, still hoping to stumble across Phyrexia, or
an excavation team with its precious ambulators. He'd be
gone for a month, even a season, and her life would be her
own.

Long before the dragon was finished, Xantcha had
learned how to control the substance that emerged from her
cyst and expand it into a buoyant sphere instead of the
clinging armor Urza had intended. Seated in the sphere,
she'd traveled an irregular circuit of the hamlets and
farms surrounding the forest, learning the local dialects
and trading with women who accepted her claim that she
lived with "an old man of the forest."

She still visited the local women, albeit carefully,
lest they notice that she wasn't growing older the way they
were, but with Urza gone for longer periods of time Xantcha
gradually expanded her horizons. She was, after all,
following Urza's orders. He didn't want her to remain near
the cave while he was gone. Urza reasoned that Phyrexians
might take her by surprise, extract his secrets from her
empty mind, then ambush him when he returned. He designed
an artifact that was attuned to his eyes. Though small
enough to be worn as a sparkling pendant, the artifact
could send a signal between-worlds.

"Come back frequently," he'd told Xantcha when he hung
the jewel around her neck. "If they've returned, hide
yourself far, far away from here, then break the crystal
and I will return for my- for our-vengeance. Above all,
once you've seen a Phyrexian, stay away from the forest
until I come for you. Don't let your curiosity lead you
into foolishness. If they find you, they will reclaim you,
and you will betray me. You wouldn't want that to happen."

Twelve winters, twelve summers, and Urza still spoke to
her as if she couldn't think for herself or hear through
his lies. She swore she'd do as he asked. Whatever his
reasons were, Xantcha didn't want to come face-to-face with
anything Phyrexian, even though she suspected Urza wouldn't
come back for her after he dealt with Phyrexia.

Urza's demands weren't a burden. The chaos and
subtleties of born-folk societies fascinated her. Giving
herself to the world's wind, Xantcha explored whatever
struck her curiosity, so long as it didn't reek of
Phyrexia's glistening oil. She learned to speak the born-
folk languages, to read their writing, when it existed. The
warrior-cave had a hundred different names, all of them
archaic, all of them curses. In the world's larger towns,
where more folk knew their history, she discovered it was
better to invent a completely false history for herself
than to admit she had roots near the warrior-cave.

After a few narrow escapes and near disasters, Xantcha
decided that it was better to disguise herself as well.
Born-folk had definite notion about the proper places of
young men and women in their societies, and no place at all
for a newt who was neither. An incorrigible lad, a rogue in

the making, was an easier disguise than a young woman. At
best when she wore a young woman's clothes, good-
intentioned folk wanted to swallow her into their families.
At worst... at worst, she'd been lucky to escape with her
life. But Xantcha did escape and, hardened by Phyrexia,
there was nothing in a born-folks' world that daunted her
for long.

The forest world had one moon, which went from full to
new to full again in thirty-six days. The born-folk marked
time by their moon's phases, and Xantcha did, too,
returning to the cave twice each month. Sometimes there was
a message from Urza in the ruins of the neglected cottage.
Sometimes he was there himself, waiting for her, eager to
whisk her between-worlds to witness his latest
accomplishment or discovery.

Urza had no one else. Although he said there were
others who could walk between planes, he avoided them and
bom-folk alike.

Without Xantcha, there were only ghosts to break his
silence. If anything would lure Urza back to her after
Phyrexia, Xantcha expected it would be loneliness.

She pitied Urza; it seemed he'd lost more to his
nightmares than he believed she'd lost to the Phyrexians.
His artifact pendant was her most precious possession, a
constant reminder that never left her neck. Yet, she was
always a little relieved when she found the forest
deserted, and except for one nagging worry, she would not
have mourned the loss if Urza never reappeared in her life.

The worry was her heart, the lump Xantcha had held in
her hand when the vat-priests decanted her, the lump they'd
taken from her moments later, as they took it from every
other newt. It had slipped through her memory sometime
after she'd become a dodger, but it resurfaced when she
encountered the Trien.

The Trien believed that their hearts could hold only so
many misdeeds before they burst and consigned them to hell.
To defend against eternal torment, the Trien purged their
hearts of error through bloodletting and guilt dances. Urza
had no more blood within him than a compleated Phyrexian,
but she'd thought the guilt dance might defeat his
nightmares, so she danced with the Trien-to test her
theory-and in the midst of hysteria and ecstasy she'd
remembered her own heart.

Xantcha tried to convince herself that the tale the
vat-priests had told her was merely another of their
countless lies. Her heart hadn't been very big, and no
matter who might have done the counting, her or the
Ineffable, she'd made a lot of mistakes that hadn't killed
her. But Xantcha had never been particularly persuasive,
not with Urza nor with herself. For the first time
Xantcha's dreams were filled with her own ghosts: newts and
priests, a plundered wind-crystal of music and beauty,
insect warriors with baleful eyes, and even Gix as the
other demons shoved him through the Fourth Sphere fumarole.

Worse than dreams, Xantcha began to worry what would
happen if Urza succeeded, and all Phyrexia, including the
heart vault beneath the Fane of Flesh, were destroyed.

She conquered her nightmares and worries; obsession
wasn't part of her nature. Still, when the time came, after
nearly two hundred summers of waiting, that Xantcha found

diggers, bearers, and a handful of gremlin dodgers in the
forest cave, she didn't retreat before breaking Urza's
crystal artifact.

Urza arrived with his dragon less than a day later and
caught the Phyrexians by surprise. From her bolt-hole in
the hill above the warriors' cave, Xantcha heard the
gremlins screaming and counted the flashes as the diggers
and bearers exploded.

A handful of diggers made a stand in front of the cave.
Urza toyed with them, tossing each again and again before
crushing it. It was a display worthy of Phyrexia in its
cruelty and single-minded arrogance. Xantcha couldn't
watch. She looked away and saw, to her horror, a searcher-
priest not ten paces away. She thought it was hiding,
though it was difficult to imagine any com-pleat Phyrexian
seeking shelter among living trees and animals.

Then insight struck. The searcher was fulfilling its
destiny, watching an artifact Phyrexia would surely covet.
Xantcha couldn't guess whether the priest had seen her
before she saw it, but a moment later it began to run
toward the ambulator, which it could-if it had the time and
thought quickly enough-unan-chor and suck to Phyrexia
behind it.

Xantcha had no means to tell Urza that he was in danger
of losing his way to Phyrexia and no reason to think she
could stop the searcher-priest or even that she could catch
it before it reached the ambulator, but if it paused to
unanchor the nether end, she hoped she could delay it until
Urza arrived. After a mnemonic yawn, she abandoned her
bolt-hole.

The searcher-priest had no intention of unanchoring the
ambulator's nether end or even slowing down. It had a score
of strides on Xantcha when its brass foot touched the black
circle. With its second step, it crossed the midpoint and
sank between-worlds. Too fast. Too fast, memory warned from
the back of Xantcha's mind; the priests had told them to
enter the ambulators slowly, lest they get caught between
two worlds.