There was the faintest hint of a question in his statement. The sense that they were being watched hadn't faded with the numbness and lethargy. If anything, Xantcha was more aware than ever that she was in strange, perhaps hostile, surroundings.
"As stubborn and suspicious as ever," Xantcha replied with a wink of her own.
"We will talk, child. There is much to talk about. But, first you must meet our host." His arm urged her to walk beside him.
"I did once, already." Xantcha slipped free and into one of the many, many other languages they both knew. If they were back to child, then she was going to be very stubborn and twice as suspicious. Lowering her voice, she added, "Serra sent me away to die, Urza, and sent one of her own to die with me. That's why you didn't know I was alive."
"We will talk, child," Urza repeated in Serra's language. "This is not a good time to have a tantrum."
She switched to another language. "I'm not a child, I'm not having a tantrum, and you know it!"
Urza could put thoughts into Xantcha's head with only a little more discomfort than when he removed them. Yes, I know, and I will ask Serra why she misled me. I'm sure the answer will amuse us both. But for now you are safe with me, and it will be better all around if you behave graciously.
Xantcha replied with a thought of her own. Graciously be damned! Serra didn't mislead you ... she lied!
But Xantcha couldn't put a thought in Urza's mind, and her indignation went unshared. Urza walked away, and faced with a choice between keeping up with him or staying by herself, she caught up, as he'd almost certainly known she would.
He said the chamber was known as Serra's Aviary and that she had seldom left it since creating her floating island realm.
"Then you know this isn't a natural world?" Xantcha asked, still refusing to speak Serra's language.
"Yes," Urza replied, ignoring her choice of language.
"Does it remind you of my home as much as it reminds me?" She was careful not to speak the word Phyrexia.
"There are no abominations here. The angels' wings are no more a part of them than your cyst is part of you. Serra's realm is slow and not without its flaws, but it is a living, natural place."
"For you. I haven't eaten since I got here. That's not natural for me."
"She has paid a price for her creation. Now, be gracious."
Urza took Xantcha's hand as they wound around another organic column. A narrow spiral stairway opened in front of them. Xantcha looked up and up and up.
"There's another way-?"
"We are guests."
Urza began climbing. Xantcha fell in behind him and into a kind of trance. The spiral was a tight one and each step a bit different in height and width than its neighbors. An odd sort of perfection that made each one unique, Xantcha thought, when she dared to think. Each step required concentration lest she lose her balance and tumble to the floor, which through the tangle of branches around them had come to look like twinkling stars on a warm, humid night. Urza surged ahead of her, but a hand awaited at the top of the stairway.
Not Urza. Kenidiern. She recognized him by his stained robe.
"She asked me to wait until you were here."
Xantcha was breathing hard, but Urza's embrace had revitalized her. She didn't need anyone's help to follow the angel along a suspended walkway to a somewhat more intimate chamber than any she'd yet seen in the palace. It was only ten or twenty times the size that a room needed to be. Urza was there already, talking with a woman who could only be the lady, Serra, herself.
Having seen angels, archangels and Sosinna, Xantcha had expected a tall, slender and remote woman, but Serra could have walked through any man-made village without attracting a second glance. Her face, though pleasant, was plain, and
she had the sturdy silhouette of a woman who'd borne children and done many a hard day's work. She was also one of two light sources in the chamber, surrounded by a gently flickering white nimbus. If she'd created this realm, as Urza said, then, like him, she could change her appearance to suit her whims.
The chamber's other light source was incomprehensible at first glance: a jumble of golden light and angular crystals bound together into two overlapping spheres. An artifact, certainly- Xantcha's dodger instincts had never deserted her-and beautiful, but its purpose, except as a source of light, eluded her.
"Please." Kenidiern offered his hand again. "She is very weak, and she must be alive when the cocoon is closed or there is no reason to close it."
Be gracious, Urza had said, so Xantcha let the angel have her hand, and before she could object he'd swept her up in both arms and carried her into the crystal lights. The wingless sisters of Serra were, perhaps, accustomed to being swooped about the palace, but Xantcha had rarely felt as helpless or as grateful to have her own feet under her once they'd reached a tiny enclosure where the spheres met.
Cocoon, Kenidiern called it, and that was as good a word as any for the vaguely egg-shaped compartment in which Sosinna lay. Her stained gown was gone, replaced by a shining quilt, but the Aegis had seared her face and hair. Her eyes were terrible, frightened and frightening. Sosinna was blind. At least, Xantcha hoped Sosinna was blind.
"Xantcha?" Sosinna's voice was a pain-wracked whisper. Her breathing was shallow and liquid.
Xantcha had seen worse, done worse, though few things in her life had been more difficult than reaching out to touch the quilt-bandaged lump that was, or had been, Sosinna's hand.
"I'm here."
"We made it. You were right."
"Difficult, but right."
Sosinna tried to smile, pain defeated her. "We will name our child for you."
Be gracious, that was easy. "I'm honored." Optimism came harder. "I'll show her, or him, how to be difficult."
Another failed smile on Sosinna's swollen lips and an agonizing attempt to shake her head. "You will go outside where you belong. Kenidiern and I will remember you."
With the sound of his name, Kenidiern came closer. His wings were soft, plumes rather than feathers. He rested his hand on Xantcha's shoulders. A shiver ran down Xantcha's spine, reminding her that, unlike Serra, the Ineffable had decreed that Phyrex-ians would not be born, and she was neither a man nor woman. Xantcha couldn't know if Kenidiern were a true paragon of anything useful, but she believed he had been looking for his beloved, and she envied Sosinna as she had never envied anyone before.
"We must close the cocoon," Kenidiern whispered, urging her to retreat.
Better call it a coffin. Some hurts were beyond even Urza's healing talents, and Sosinna's would be among them. It wasn't just her skin that had been charred and blistered. Sosinna had breathed fire and her insides were burnt as well. Xantcha took a backward step.
"Good-bye ... friend." Sosinna whispered.
"Good-bye, friend."
The upper sphere had begun to descend. Sosinna might be blind, but the cocoon wasn't silent. Surely she knew it was closing around her. She met her end without a whimper.
"Until you rise again," Kenidiern added, a euphemism, if ever Xantcha had heard one, though Sosinna managed a trembling smile just before the spheres blocked Xantcha's view.
There was a click, the golden light intensified, and, through her feet, Xantcha felt the whir of a distant engine. She thought of the Fane of Flesh, of the vats where discarded flesh was rendered and newts were decanted.
"You didn't say good-bye," she said to Kenidiern.
"Sosinna will rise again. The Lady does not offer her cocoon to everyone, but when she does, it never fails."
He swept Xantcha up again before she could protest and brought her down to Urza and Serra, whose conversation died as they approached.