The nozzle arm was also new to Xantcha. She thought she'd seen a thin black thread reach out to the bird, but the attack had been so quick that she couldn't be sure of anything except the bird had disappeared in a burst of red light. Nothing, not even a feather, had fallen from the sky.
No doubt Xantcha would find out exactly what it could do, and since the priest's arms were mismatched, what surprises lurked on its right side. Urza's armor had never failed.
"Over here, meatling!" Few epithets would get a priest's attention quicker than calling it a newt. Xantcha stood up, brandishing her broken sword.
The nozzle weapon sent something very sharp, very hot at the hollow of Xantcha's neck, and she felt as though it had come out through her spine. Urza's armor flashed a radiant cobalt blue, astonishing both her and the priest.
"What is your place?" the priest demanded through mouth-parts hidden within its triangle head. It was not an avenger, modeled after fleshly predators, it was, despite its weapons, a thinker, a planner. "Xantcha."
The right arm came up and shot forth a segmented cable, the tip of which was a fast-spinning flower with razored petals. It struck Xantcha's face. She felt bones give, but the flower took greater damage. Steel petals clattered to the ground, and pulses of glistening oil spurted from the still-spinning hub. Xantcha struck quickly with the broken sword, enveloping the cable and yanked hard. It had two metal legs and a top-heavy torso. In the Phyrexia she remembered, such bipedal priests had a tendency to topple.
And it nearly did, though nearly was worse than not at all. Xantcha had simply pulled it closer, and it lashed the severed cable of its right arm around her waist. It began using its metal arms as clubs. Xantcha could neither retreat nor make good use of her sword. Her right elbow got clobbered and broken within the armor. She managed to get the sword free of the cable and transferred to her left hand before her right went numb within the armor. Xantcha took the only stroke she had, a sideswipe at the priest's right eye.
Two more of Urza's canisters rained down. One was concussive; the other screamed so loud Xantcha's ears hurt through the armor. Together, the canisters jarred something loose inside the priest. Glistening oil poured from the
downward point of its triangle head. It struck one final time, another blow to her already mangled elbow-they truly had no imagination-before it expired.
He'd saved her life.
Ratepe, son of Mideah, had saved her life.
The damn fool either hadn't heard her shout or, most likely, had ignored it.
Xantcha writhed free of the cable. Numbness had spread up her right arm to her shoulder. She'd survive. Urza himself had said that a Phyrexian newt's ability to heal itself was nothing less than miraculous, but she wasn't looking forward to releasing the armor and wouldn't consider doing it until she'd dealt with the ambulator.
She got down on her knees and cursed. New designs or no, the black pool in front of her was definitely the nether end of an ambulator, and unless she wanted to poke her head into Phyrexia to loosen the prime end, there was no way Xantcha could destroy it completely. But she could make it very dangerous to use, if she could get it rolled and find some way to break or reset the black lens. She had half the rim unanchored when yet another pair of canisters showered her with glass and fire.
"Enough, already!"
She moved on to the next anchor.
Ratepe arrived moments later. "Xantcha!"
"Stay away!" she warned harshly. The pain was bearable but numbness was making her groggy. She could have used help, but not from someone who was pure, mortal flesh. "It's not done. Not yet. I told you to run!"
"Xan-"
Xantcha realized she must look bad, broken bones bruising her face, her right arm, mangled and useless. "Don't worry about me.
I'll be fine in a couple of days. Just... get away from here. More can come through, even now. Make yourself unnoticeable. I've to create an inconvenience."
"I'll help-"
"You'll hide."
She popped another anchor. The pool rippled, black on black. Ratepe retreated, but not far. She didn't have the strength to argue with him.
"There, by the priest, you'll see a little black glass- circle thing. Don't touch it! Don't touch anything. But think about breaking that glass." Xantcha crawled to the next anchor.
"Priest? Shratta?"
"No." She pointed at the heap of metal that had been the Phyrexian and went back to work on the anchor. Another eight or ten, and she'd have it loose.
"Merciful Avohir! Xantcha, what is it?"
"Phyrexian. A priest. I don't know what kind, something new since I left. That's what we're fighting. Except, that's a priest and not a Phyrexian meant for fighting."
"Not like you, then-"
Xantcha looked up. He was bent over, reaching out. "I said, don't touch it!" He straightened. "And I'm not a fighter. I'm not anything, a newt, nothing started, nothing compleated. Just a newt."
"The six-I killed the last one, myself, with those coins you left me." She hadn't heard the explosions. Well,
there'd been other things on her mind. "They called this ... a priest? They invited it here, to Efuan Pincar?"
"Big trouble, just like you said. And don't kid yourself. Assume they've got more ambulators." She remembered the upright disk in the Moag temple. "Assume they've got worse. Assume that some of the sleepers are awake, that there are priests inside the palace, and that some of your own have been corrupted, starting with your king." Xantcha released another anchor. "Look at the glass, will you? My sword broke when I hit it."
A moment or two of silence. She was down to her last three anchors when Ratepe said, "I've got an idea," and ran into the trees.
He came back with the firepots and the rest of Urza's canisters. "We can put it in one of the pots with the bangers, put one pot on top of the other and let it rip."
All the anchors were up and Xantcha had no better idea, except to send Ratepe to the far end of the orchard before she followed his suggestions.
Afterward, she remembered flying through the air and landing in a tree.
CHAPTER 14
It had happened before in the between-worlds: a sensation of falling that lasted until Xantcha opened her eyes and found herself looking at nothing familiar.
"Ah, awake at last."
The voice was not quite a man's voice, yet deeper than most female voices and quite melodious, though Xantcha suspected that an acid personality powered it. She could almost picture a Phyrexian with that voice, though this place wasn't Phyrexia. Not a whiff of glistening oil accompanied the voice, and the air was quiet. There was music, in the distance, music such as might be made by glass chimes or bells.
Xantcha remembered the wind-crystal on another world.
She realized she was not in a bedroom, not in a building of any sort. The wall to her left and the ceiling above were a shallow, wind-eroded cave. Elsewhere, the world was grass. Grass with a woman's voice?
"Where am I? How did I get here? Urza? Where's Urza? We were together on the ice, fighting Phyrexians." She propped herself up on one elbow. "I have to find him." She was dizzy. Xantcha was rarely dizzy.
"As you were!"
By its tone, the voice was accustomed to obedience.