Xantcha didn't know whether to relax or ratchet her apprehension tighter when the priests successfully navigated through the plaza throng, and Avohir's holy book disappeared into the sanctuary. Ratepe was obviously more anxious, but his lips moved too quickly for her to read his words, even after she'd asked him to slow down and speak distinctly.
Then something happened to make Ratepe put his hands over his ears. All across the plaza, Efuands hitherto unaffected were reacting to a painful noise, but there were no Red-Stripes-no Phyrexians-to take advantage of them. All of them, sleepers and compleat, those already dead and those still alive, simply exploded, bursting like sun- ripened corpses. Sound, as Urza had promised, with the power to shake glistening oil until it pulled apart. The Glimmer Moon had struck its zenith. Everything until that moment had been mere forewarning.
Xantcha's whole body tingled from the inside out. If Urza's armor failed, she'd be dead before she knew she was endangered. She tried to imagine the scenes in all the other cities where she and Urza had planted the spiders. Born Dominarians on their knees, as Ratepe was, perhaps spattered with blood that glistened malevolently in the moonlight. All of them wondering if it were their turn to die.
The Red-Stripe barracks collapsed and, through her feet, Xantcha heard the ground wail. A cloud of dust as large as the guild inn billowed through sanctuary doors, a cloud that rose quickly to hide the temple and half the plaza from Xantcha's view. When dust had settled some, she and every Efuand saw that the great dome above the altar and the gong tower-shadows in the night moments earlier- were both missing.
From his knees, Ratepe lowered his hands and pounded the roof with his fists. A god who couldn't protect his book or his sanctuary was apt to lose the faith of his worshipers. Xantcha didn't know the depth of Ratepe's faith, but she guessed it had been shaken to its roots.
It was shaken further when an intense red glow filled Avohir's sanctuary, overflowing through the open doors, the windows, and the roof. Xantcha saw the wotd fire on Ratepe's lips, but the light wasn't fire. It was Gix.
Xantcha broke the chain that had held Urza's pendant around her neck. She held the crystal up in the crimson light. Very clearly, it was broken and, just as clearly, Urza wasn't coming. He hadn't said where he'd go to watch the Glimmer Moon strike its zenith. He could have gone to the Glimmer Moon itself or he could have remained in the Ohran Ridge cottage.
Or Urza's absence could mean that Gix was not the only demon on Dominarian soil and that Urza was already in a desperate brawl. Urza could 'walk anywhere, but even he couldn't be in two places at once.
The red light within Avohir's sanctuary grew brighter, larger. It fluctuated and emitted serpentine flares that faded slowly in the night. The smell of Phyrexia grew steadily stronger. Xantcha imagined Gix burning and battering his way up from the catacombs. She wondered if he
had the power to destroy a city and didn't doubt for a heartbeat that the demon would, if he could.
There was nothing Xantcha could do to stop Gix, and until she was sure that the spiders were exhausted, there was nothing she dared do to spirit herself and Ratepe away.
Vast crimson fingers leapt from the roofless sanctuary. They soared into the sky, then arched toward the plaza. Looking up, Xantcha and everyone else saw that the fingers were hollow, filled with darkness and fanged like serpents. The darkness resembled the upright passageway to Phyrexia that she'd seen in the crypt. Xantcha feared they'd all be sucked into the Fourth Sphere. Ratepe put his arms around her, and Xantcha wrapped hers around him. She wanted to feel his warm, mortal flesh with her fingers and wouldn't have cared if the spiders killed her, except that she wouldn't force Ratepe to watch her die.
She saw a ribbon of silvery light emerge from the center of palace. Diving and soaring, the palace light pierced each serpent and drew them all together with a choking knot before dragging them over the north wall and out to sea.
Xantcha shouted, "Urza!" at Ratepe who needed a few more heartbeats before he could shape his lips around the name.
Gix fought back, but as Xantcha had always suspected, Urza was more than a match for a Phyrexian demon ... or a Thran one. Neither duelist was visible from the plaza or the roof, though they each knew exactly where the other was. They fought with light and fire, with artifacts and creatures that defied naming in any language Xantcha knew. Gix would have lost quickly if the demon had not aimed most of his destruction at the Efuand survivors in the plaza and thereby forced Urza to defend the innocent.
Then Urza loosed two weapons at once: bolts of lightning to counter Gix's last cowardly thrust and a dragon shaped like the one he'd ridden into Phyrexia, but shaped from golden light. Stars shone through the dragon's wings, but its power was anything but illusory. A jet of intense blue fire shot from its mouth as it began a stoop that would take it into Gix's sanctuary lair.
Gix didn't die fighting; nor did he retreat to Phyrexia. Instead he abandoned Pincar City altogether: a relatively small green-gold streak racing to the south, a half-breath ahead of the dragon's flame.
Xantcha expected the dragon to pursue Gix over the horizon, but it continued its stoop into the ruined sanctuary. She braced herself for the physical shock wave of a crash that never came. A heartbeat, and another, and the dragon lifted into flight again, showing first its wings, then its spidery torso, and at last, clasped in a pair of legs, a book that recently had seemed very large and now looked quite small. The dragon beat its translucent wings twice for altitude. Then it stooped again and set Avohir's holy book on the battered dais before climbing back into the sky.
The dragon circled out to sea-Avohir's home according to myth-and the Efuands still standing, including Ratepe, set up a cheer in its wake, but Urza wasn't finished. He brought the dragon back (Xantcha would have sworn he shrank it just a bit, too) for a gentle glide over the palace
roofs. Through its bright, shifting light, Xantcha wasn't sure it had picked something up until it was almost overhead and she could see a frail old man getting the ride of his life.
It was a miracle of another sort that Tabarna's heart didn't fail before the dragon set him down beside Avohir's book. The dragon flew straight up after that and disappeared among the stars.
The Efuands who'd cheered the survival of their book, went wild when they saw their king. Xantcha couldn't get Ratepe's attention no matter how hard she pounded his back or how loudly she shouted, "Is it over? Can I release Urza's armor?"
Yes, it's over, Xantcha. Urza's voice spoke to Xantcha's thoughts.
You heard! she replied, releasing the armor and pulling the wax out of her ears. You came! The cheers of the crowd, after total silence, were as deafening as the spiders.
Xantcha had trouble hearing Urza when he said, still in her mind, I've been here all along, keeping my eyes on Gix. I didn't want to frighten you.
Waste not, want not. How long had Urza known?
Xantcha hadn't kept her thoughts private. Urza pulled the question from her mind and answered it. Since the priest in the orchard. I went back to all the haunted places. I saw how the Phyrexi-ans had crept into my world again. I found Tabama in a ceil beneath the palace-he was quite mad, but still himself. The Phyrexians needed to trot him out periodically, and they could only do what they did to Mishra because he carried the Weakstone. So I stole Tabarna from them and hid him on another plane.
That, I confess, was the act that brought Gix here to Pincar City. Since then, everything I've done-everything I've had you do-has been building toward this moment. I healed Tabama. Madness, you know, sinks deep roots in a man's soul once he's seen sights and thought thoughts no man should see or think. There are some moments he'll never remember again, moments such as I wish I could forget, Xantcha. The Shratta could not be deceived, so they were killed while Tabama watched. But he'll live another ten years and sire another son or two. I guarantee it.