Planeswalker (23 page)

Her armor would protect her ... probably. Her club
would almost certainly have no effect on avengers meant to
destroy Urza the Artificer, but Xantcha would sooner face
her personal end right here, right now, than risk capture
and return to Phyrexia, or-even worse-eternity on this icebound
world. She leapt onto the back of the nearest turtle
and took aim at the forward gap in its carapace.

The turtle proved quite agile, bucking like an unbroken
horse in its efforts to throw Xantcha off. She held on
until two of the other avengers began targeting her instead
of Urza. The armor held, barely. Xantcha felt the heat of
dark magic, front and back, and the crack of her ribs as
they began to break, one by one, under the hammer-and-anvil
pressure.

The last thing Xantcha saw was Urza, brighter than the
sun....

Not a bad sight to carry into the darkness.

Summer had come to the Ohran ridge some two months
after Ratepe arrived. Grass in every shade of green rippled
in the wind beneath a blue crystal sky. Xantcha's sphere
rose easily, caught a westward breeze, and began the
journey to Efuan Pincar.

"Do you think this is going to work?" Ratepe asked when
the cottage had disappeared into the folded foothills.

She didn't answer. Ratepe gave her a sulky look, which
she also ignored. Still sulking, he began rearranging their
traveling gear. Xantcha's head brushed the inner curve.
Ratepe, who was a head-plus taller, was at a much greater
disadvantage. With a dramatic show of determination, he
shoved the largest, heaviest box behind them and
upholstered it with food sacks. Although his efforts made
the sphere easier to maneuver, if he didn't settle down
Xantcha thought she might finish the journey alone.

"I don't think I've ever had cushions up here before,"
she said, trying to be pleasant, hoping pleasantry would be
enough to calm her companion.

"I do what I can," he replied, still sulking.

Ratepe had a flair for solving problems, which didn't
seem to depend on the images he gleaned from Urza's
Weakstone eye.

Even Urza had noticed it and made a point of discussing
things with him that he'd never have mentioned to her.
Xantcha told herself this was exactly what she'd wanted-an
Urza who paid attention to the world around him. Of course,
Urza thought he was talking to his long-dead brother, and
Ratepe, though he played his part well, wanted more than
conversation.

These days, Ratepe's mind swam in the memories of a man
who'd been Urza's peer in artifice. He'd absorbed all the
theories of artifact creation, but as clever as he was with
sacks and boxes, he was awkward at the worktable. Perhaps
if he'd been willing to start with simple things ... but
if Ratepe had had the temperament for easy beginnings, the
Weakstone probably would have ignored him, as it had always
ignored Xantcha.

He'd tried pure magic where Xantcha had been certain he
would succeed. Urza always said that magic was rooted in
the land. Ratepe's devotion to Efuan Pincar was the
touchstone of his life, and magic often came both late and
sudden into a mortal's life, but it wouldn't enter
Ratepe's, no matter how earnestly he invited it. The lowest
blow, however, had come after he'd badgered Urza into
concocting another cyst.

Ratepe had gulped the lump without a heartbeat's
hesitation and writhed in agony for two days before he let
Urza dissolve it. One artifact poisoning wasn't enough.
He'd tried twice more, until Urza-who knew somewhere in the
fathomless depths of his being that Ratepe was an ordinary
young man and not his brother-refused to brew up another
one.

"I don't mind doing the heavy work," Xantcha said. The
sphere was moving nicely on its own. She laid her hand on
his arm. "I like the company ... the friendship."

Ratepe was more than a friend, though both of them were
careful not to put the difference into words. The cottage
had only two rooms. Her room had only one bed. The
difference had come suddenly. One moment they were each
alone, ignoring another rainy night. The next, they were on
the bed, sitting near each other, then touching. For
warmth, he'd said, and Xantcha had agreed, as if curiosity
had never gotten her into trouble before. As if she hadn't
known the difference between curiosity and need and been
coldly willing to take advantage of it.

It had been awkward at first. Xantcha was, as she'd
warned, a Phyrexian newt, a vat-grown creature whose
purpose had never been to love another or beget children.
But Ratepe was nothing if not persistent in the face of
challenge, and the problems, though inconvenient, had been
surmounted without artifice or magic. He was satisfied.
Xantcha was surprised-astonished beyond all the words in
all the languages she knew-to discover that being in love
had nothing to do with being born.

Ratepe laced his fingers through hers. "I could do
more. You never made good on your threat to make me cook my
own food."

"There's only one hearth. I haven't had time to make
another."

"That's what I mean." Ratepe tightened his hand. "You
do everything. Urza doesn't notice, but I do. You're the
one who makes the decisions."

Xantcha laughed. "You don't know Urza very well."

"I wouldn't know him at all if you hadn't decided to
bring me here. I wake up in the morning, and for a few
moments I think I'm back in Efuan Pincar with my family and
that it's all been a dream. I think about telling my little
brother, then I look over at you-"

She made an unnecessary adjustment to the sphere's
drift, an excuse to reclaim her hand. "Urza's coming back
to life, letting go of his obsessions. That's your doing."

Ratepe sighed. "I hadn't noticed."

Ratepe, like Mishra, had a tendency to sulk. Xantcha
had reread The Antiquity Wars looking for ways to buoy his
spirits. She'd even asked Urza what could put an end to
Ratepe-or Mishra's- black, self-defeating moods. Silence,
Urza had replied, had always been the best tactic when his

brother sulked. Mishra couldn't bear to be ignored. Be
patient, out wait him and his quicksilver temper would find
another target.

Xantcha had learned endurance without mastering
patience. "For the first time in two and a half centuries,
Urza's worktable isn't covered with mountains. He's making
artifacts again." Xantcha thumped the box behind her. "New
artifacts, not the same gnats. He pays attention when you
talk to him. Why do you think we're going up to Efuan
Pincar?"

"To appease me? To keep me in my place?"

Xantcha's temper rose. "Don't be ridiculous."

"No? I've done what you wanted. He calls me Mishra and
I answer. I listen to the Weakstone and remember things I
never lived, that no one should have lived. When you or he
says that I'm so much like Mishra ... by Avohir's book, I
want to go outside and smash my skull with a rock. It's no
compliment to be compared with a cold-blooded murderer, and
that's what they both are, Xantcha. That's what they always
were. They care more about things than people. But I don't
do it, because all I've got to replace everything I've lost
is you. You asked me to be Mishra, so I am. All I've asked
of Urza is that he care enough to send a few of his
precious artifacts for Efuan Pincar."

"He does. He has. We're taking these to Pincar City,
aren't we?"

"Admit it, you'd both rather be rooting around in
Baszerat or Morvern. You've been down there, what, seven,
eight times?"

"Six, and you could have come. The lines are clearer
there. Urza recognizes the strategies. It's your war all
over again, just smaller."

"Not my war, damn it! If I were going to fight a war it
wouldn't be in Baszerat or Morvern!"

Xantcha made the sphere tumble and swerve, but those
tricks no longer worked. Ratepe had overcome his fear of
the open sky. He kept his balance as easily as she did and
knew perfectly well that she wasn't going to let them drop
to the ground.

"You're wasting your time. Get rid of the Phyrexians in
Baszerat or Morvern, and they'll keep on fighting each
other. That's what they do."

"And Efuands are so much better than Baszerati swine
and Morvernish sheep, or have I got that backward? Are the
Baszerati the swine or the sheep?"

"They're all pig-keepers."

Belatedly, Xantcha clamped her teeth together and said
nothing. She should have taken Urza's advice, hard as
ignoring Rat was when they couldn't get more than a
handspan apart. The sphere came around on two long tacks
before he saw fit to speak again.

"Do you think it will work?"

The same question he'd asked as they'd risen up from
the cottage, but the whiny edge was gone from his voice.
Xantcha risked an honest answer.

"Maybe. The artifacts will work. They'll be our eyes
and ears and noses in the walls. We'll find out where the
Phyrexians are, and if we know that, maybe we'll be able to
figure out what they're up to, what can be done to thwart
them."

"We know they're in the Red-Stripes and we know the
Red-Stripes are doing the Shratta's dirty work. If there
are any Shratta left. I want to get to Pincar City and get
you into Avohir's temple. I want to know what kinds of oils
you smell there. I want you in the palace, so I'll know
what's happened to Tabarna. Has he become another Mishra, a
man on the outside, a Phyrexian on the inside? Avohir's
mercy-I was so certain Urza would listen when I said,
'Brother, don't let the Phyrexians do to another man what
they did to me!' And what was his response? Pebbles! We're
going to scatter pebbles then come back, who knows when,
and see if any of the pebbles have changed color!" Ratepe
took a breath and began speaking in a dead-on imitation of
Urza, "That way I will know for certain if my enemy has
come to Efuan Pincar... .

"Sometimes I'm not so sure he is Urza. Maybe he was
once someone like me, then the Mightstone took over his
life. Avohir! If a man's a murderer, what's the use of a
conscience? During the war, the real Urza and the real
Mishra both made hunter-killers, none of this pebbles-onthe-
path, wait-and-see nonsense. They went right after each
other."

"Urza doesn't want to repeat his old mistakes." Waste
not, want not-she was defending Urza with the very
arguments that had infuriated her for millennia. "The
situation in Efuan Pincar is different. He's not sure
what's going on, so he's being careful."

"And putting all his real efforts into Baszerat and
Morvern! Avohir! How many Efuand villages have to burn
before they're important?"

"I wouldn't know," Xantcha snarled. "Dominaria's the
only world he's ever come back to. Everyplace else, he's
just 'walked off and left to its fate. Urza may not be
doing what you'd like him to do, but he is doing something.
He listens to you, Ratepe. He's never really listened to
anyone before. You should be pleased with yourself."

"Not while my people are dying. Urza's got the power,
Xantcha, and the obligation to use it."

Xantcha was going to mutter something about men who put
ideas first, but resisted the impulse. Prickly silence
persisted throughout the afternoon. She brought the sphere
down with the sun. Ratepe made an abortive attempt to help
set up their camp, but they weren't ready to talk civilly
to each other. Xantcha banished him to nearby trees until
she got the fire lit.

The sky was radiant lavender before she went looking
for her troublesome companion. Ratepe had seated himself on
the west-facing bole of a fallen tree. Xantcha got no
reaction as she approached and was rekindling her
irritation when she realized his cheeks were wet. Compleat
Phyrexians didn't cry, but newts sometimes did, until they
learned it didn't help. "Supper's on the fire."

Ratepe started, realized he'd been weeping, and wiped
his face roughly on his sleeve before meeting her eyes.
"I'm not hungry." "Still angry with me?"

He turned west again. "The Sea-star's above the sun.
The Festival of Fruits is over."

A single yellow star shone in the lavender. "Berulu,"
she said, giving it the old Argivian name that Urza used.
It would be another week before it rose high enough to be

seen from the cottage. "I'm eighteen."

Born-folk, being mortal and having parents and usually
living their whole lives on a single world, kept close
track of their ages. "Is that a significant age?" she asked
politely. Some years were more important than others.

Ratepe swallowed and spoke in a husky voice. "You and
Urza don't live by any calendar. One day's the same as the
next. There isn't any reason ... I-I forgot my birthday.
It must have been three, maybe four days ago. Last year-
last year we were together. My mother roasted a duck, and
my little brother gave me a honey-cake that was full of
sand. My father gave me a book, Sup-pulan's Philosophy. The
Shratta burnt it. For them, there is only one book. Or it
wasn't the Shratta but the Red-Stripes doing Shratta work
who burnt it. It got burnt, that's enough. Burnt and gone."
Ratepe hid his face in his hands as memory got the better
of him. "Go away."

"You think about them?"

"Go away," he repeated, then added, "Please."

Urza's grief had hardened into obsession. Xantcha
understood obsession. Ratepe's flowed freely from his heart
and mystified her. "I could roast a duck for you, if I can
find one. Will that help?"

"Not now, Xantcha. I know you care, but not now.
Whatever you say, it only reminds me of what's gone."

She retreated. "I'll be by the fire until it is good
and truly dark. Then I will come back here, if you will not
come down. This is wild country, Ratepe, and you're not . .
." The right word, the word that wouldn't offend him,
failed to spring into her mind.

"I'm not what? Not clever enough to take care of
myself? Not strong enough? Not immortal or Phyrexian? You
call me Ratepe now, and you say that you love me, but I'm
still a slave, still Rat."

Agreeing with him would start a war. "Come down to the
fire. I promise I will not say anything."

Xantcha kept her promise. It wasn't difficult. Ratepe
wrapped himself in a blanket and curled up with his back to
her. She couldn't easily count the nights she'd spent in
silence and alone. None of them had seemed as long. When he
stretched himself awake after dawn, Xantcha waited for him
to speak first.

"I'm going into the palace when we get to Pincar."

She'd hoped for a less inflammatory start to the day.
"No. Impossible. You agreed to stay at an inn with our
supplies while I scattered Urza's pebbles in the places
where we don't want to find Phyrexians. Your task is to
help me find the Shratta strongholds in the countryside
once I'm done in the city. We need to know if there are any
real Shratta left."