Suddenly, they were all in darkness as Urza's golden light vanished.
"You've done it now," Xantcha said softly and with more than a little admiration. She'd never gotten the better of Urza that way. "He's gone 'walking."
But Urza hadn't 'walked away, and when the light returned it flowed from an Urza that Xantcha had never seen before: a youthful Urza, dressed in a dirt-laborer's dusty clothes and smiling as he reached out to take Ratepe's hands.
"I have missed you, Brother. I've had no one to talk to. Stand up, stand up! Come with me! Let me show you what I've learned while you were gone. It was Ashnod, you know-"
Ratepe proved he was as consistent as he was reckless. He folded his arms across his chest and stayed where he was. "You've had Xantcha. He's not 'no one.' "
"Xantcha!"
While Urza laughed, Xantcha got to her feet.
"Xantcha! I rescued Xantcha a thousand years ago-no, longer than that, more than three thousand years ago. Don't be fooled by appearances, as I was. She's Phyrexian-cooked up in one of their vats. A mistake. A failure. A slave. They were getting ready to bury her when I came along; thought she was Argivian at first. She's loyal ... to me. She's got her own reasons for turning on Phyrexia. But her mind is limited. You can talk to her, but only a fool would listen."
Xantcha couldn't meet Ratepe's eyes. When they were alone and Urza belittled her, she could blame it on his madness. Now there were three of them standing outside the cottage. Urza wasn't talking to her, he was talking about her, and there were no excuses. All their centuries together, all the experiences no one else had shared, and he'd never conquered his distrust, his disdain.
"I think-" Ratepe began, and Xantcha forced herself to catch his attention.
She mouthed the single word, Don't. It didn't matter what Urza thought of her, so long as he stopped playing with his tabletop gnats. Xantcha mouthed a second word, Phyrexia, and made a fist where Ratepe could see it. She hoped she'd told him what mattered, and that it wasn't her.
Ratepe cleared his throat. He said, "I think it is not the time to argue, Urza," and made the words sound sincere. "We have always done too much of that. I always did too much of that. There, I've admitted it, and the world did not end. Not yet; not again. You think we made our fatal mistake on the Plains of Kor. I think we made it earlier. After so long, it doesn't matter, does it? It was the same mistake either way. We couldn't talk, we could only
compete. And you won. I see the Weakstone in your left eye.
Have you ever heard it singing to you, Urza?"
Sing?
Anyone who'd read The Antiquity Wars would know that Urza's eyes had once been his Mightstone and his brother's Weakstone. Tawnos had brought that scrap back to Kayla. Ratepe claimed he'd read Kayla's epic several times, and between two stones and two eyes, he could have made a lucky guess. The Weakstone had, indeed, become Urza's left eye. But sing? Urza had never mentioned singing.
Xantcha couldn't guess what had fired Ratepe's all-toomortal imagination, but as Urza frowned and stared at the stars, she guessed it had propelled him too far.
Then Urza began to speak. "I hear it now, faintly, without word, but a song of sadness. Your song?"
Xantcha was stunned.
Urza continued: "The stone we found-the single stone- was a weapon, you know: The final defense of the Thran, their last sacrifice. They blocked the portal to Phyrexia. You and I, when we sundered the stone, we opened the portal. We let them back into Dominaria. I never asked you what you saw that day."
Ratepe grinned. "Didn't I say that we made our mistake much earlier?"
Urza clapped his hands together and laughed heartily. "You did! Yes, you did! We've got a second chance, brother. This time, we'll talk." He opened his arms, gesturing toward the open doorway. "Come, let me show you what I've learned while you were gone. Let me show you the wonders of artifice, pure artifice, Brother-none of those Phyrexian abominations. And Ashnod! Wait until I show you Ashnod: a viper at your breast, Brother. She was their first conquest, your biggest mistake."
"Show me everything," Ratepe said, walking into Urza's embrace. "Then we'll talk."
Arm in arm, they walked toward the cottage. A few steps short of the threshold, Ratepe shot a glance over his shoulder. He seemed to expect some gesture from her, but Xantcha, unable to guess what it should be, simply stood with her arms limp at her sides.
"And when we're done talking, Urza, we'll listen to Xantcha."
The door shut without a sound. The light was gone, and Xantcha was left with only moonlight to help her haul the food supplies.
CHAPTER 9
Cold fog rolled down from the mountains. Xantcha's fingers stiffened, and the rest of her grew clumsy. When she wasn't tripping over her feet, she dropped bundles and cursed loudly, not caring if she disturbed the two men on the other side of the wall.
She didn't disturb them. Urza had a new audience for his table-top. He wouldn't notice the world if it ended. And Ratepe? Ratepe was playing the dangerous game Xantcha had told him to play and playing it better than she'd dared hope. She'd all but told him not to pay any attention to her; she could hardly begrudge obedience-or fail to notice that Urza's door was unwarded. She could have left the
sacks where the sphere had scattered them.
Ratepe-Rat-Mishra-would have defended her right to join them. Xantcha was tempted to walk through the door, if only to hear what the young Efuand would say, which, considering all that hung in the balance was a selfish temptation. She resisted it until the last of the supplies was stowed in the pantry and the fog had matured into an ice-needle rain.
Inside her room, with the shutters bolted against the chill, Xantcha found herself too tired to sleep. Eyes open and empty, she ay on her bed able to hear the sounds of conversation beyond the wall without catching any of the words. She piled pillows atop her face, pulled the blankets tight, then threw everything aside. Before long, Xantcha had wedged herself into the corner at the foot of the bed. With her knees tucked beneath her chin and a blanket draped over her head, Xantcha tried to think of other things....
Of her first conversation with Urza ...
"There is a shelter at the bottom of the hill. Take me there. I'll show you the way to Phyrexia."
Urza frowned. Xantcha had rarely seen a face creased with dis-pleasure. She expected his jaw to fall to the ground But her rescuer was flexible-a newt like herself, or one of born-folk, about whom she knew very little. When his frown had sunk as much as it could, it rebounded and became a bitter laugh.
She knew the meaning of that sound.
"It's the truth. I will show you the way. I will take you to Phyrexia-though, it's only fair to tell you that avengers stand guard around the Fourth Sphere ambulator fields and we'll be destroyed on the spot."
"It's gone. It's gotten away," her rescuer said, still laughing.
"The ambulator's nether end should be there-unless you let the searcher get away. The diggers, they don't know how to roll an ambulator, and the bearers can't."
Xantcha tried to rise and felt light-headed, felt light all over. It was not an unprecedented feeling. Every time she stepped into a new world there were changes: a different texture to the air, a different color to the light, a different sense between her feet and the ground. She took a deep breath to confirm her suspicions.
"The hill and shelter are where I remember them, but I am not any place that I remember?"
"Yes, my clever child, I brought you here, and I will take you back. The hill is there, but the shelter and this ambulator of which you speak, alas, is not."