Xantcha paused beside the door. "You're assuming that there aren't any Phyrexians among the Shratta. Remember what I told you about the Baszerati and the Morvernish-the sheep and the swine? I wouldn't count on it."
She left Ratepe standing in the empty room and had gotten as far as the wellhead, beyond the hearth, before he came chasing after her.
"What do we do now?" Ratepe's cheeks were red above the dark stubble of a two-day beard. "Follow him?"
"We wait." Xantcha unknotted the winch and let the bucket drop.
"Something could go wrong."
"All the more reason to wait." She began cranking. "We'd only make it worse."
"Una hadn't ever heard of Efuan Pincar. He didn't know where it was. He doesn't know our language."
Xantcha let go of the winch. "What language do you think you two have been speaking since you got here?" Ratepe's mouth fell open, but no sound came out, so she went on. "I don't know why he says our minds are empty. He's willing to plunder them when it suits him. Urza doesn't know everything you know. You can keep a secret by just not thinking about it, or by imagining a wall around it, but in the beginning-and maybe all the time-best think that Urza knows what you know."
Ratepe stood motionless except for his breathing, which was shallow with shock. His flush had faded to waxy pale. Xantcha cranked the bucket up and offered him sweet water from the ladle. Most of it went down his chin, but he found his voice.
"He knows what I was thinking? The Weakstone and Mishra? How I thought I was outwitting Urza the Artificer? Avohir's mercy ..."
Xantcha refilled the ladle and drank. "Maybe. Urza's mad, Ratepe, He hears what he wants to hear, whether it's your voice or your thoughts, and he might not hear you at all-but he could. That's what you've got to remember. I should've told you sooner." "Do you know what I'm thinking?" "Only when your mouth is open."
He closed it immediately, and Xantcha walked away, chuckling. She'd gone about ten steps when Ratepe raced past and stopped, facing her.
"All right. I've had enough ... You're Phyrexian. You weren't born, you crawled out of a pit. You're more than three thousand years old, even though you look about twelve. You dress like a man-a boy. You talk like a man, but Efuand's a tricky language. We talk about things as if they were men or women-a dog is a man, but a cat is a lady. Among ourselves, though, when you say 'I did this,' or 'I did that,' the form's the same, whether I'm a man or woman. Usually, the difference is obvious." He swallowed hard, and Xantcha knew what he was thinking before he opened his mouth again. "Last night, Urza, when he'd talk about you,
he'd say she and her. What are you, Xantcha, a man or a
woman?"
"Is it important?"
"Yes, it's important."
"Neither."
She walked past him and didn't break his arm when he spun her back to face him.
"That's not an answer!"
"It's not the answer you want." She wrenched free.
"But, Urza ... ? Why?"
"Phyrexian's not a tricky language. There are no families, no need for men or women, no words for them, either-except in dreams. I had no need for those words until I met a demon. He invaded my mind. After that and because of it, I've thought of myself as she."
"Urza?" Ratepe's voice had harshened. He was indignant, angry.
Xantcha laughed. "No, not Urza. Long before Urza."
"So, you and Urza ... ?"
"Urza? You did read The Antiquity Wars, didn't you? Urza didn't even notice Kayla Bin-Kroog!"
She left Ratepe gaping and closed the door behind her.
CHAPTER 12
Urza was an honorable man, and an honest one. Even when he'd been an ordinary man, if the word ordinary had ever applied to Urza the Artificer, Urza had had no great use for romance or affection, but he'd tolerated friendship, one friend at a time.
After Xantcha had pushed him out of Phyrexia, he'd accepted her as a friend.
In the three thousand years since, Xantcha had never asked for more nor settled for less.
They'd stumbled through three worlds before the day during which Urza had ridden his dragon into Phyrexia, ended. Xantcha was seedier than Urza by then, which meant they were leaning against each other when Xantcha released her armor to the cool, night mist. There were unfamiliar stars peeking through the mist and a trio of blue-white moons.
"Far enough," she whispered. Her voice had been wrecked by the bad air of four different worlds. "I've got to rest."
"It's not safe! I hear him, Yawg-"
Xantcha cringed whenever Urza started to say that word. She seized the crumbling substance of his ornately armored tunic. "You're calling the Ineffable! Never say that, never do that. Every time you say that name, the Ineffable can hear you. Of all the things I was taught in the Fane of Flesh, that one I believe with all my strength. We'll never be safe until you burn that name from your memory."
Sparks danced across Una's eyes, which had been a featureless black since he'd dragged them away from Phyrexia. Xantcha didn't know what he saw, except it had him spooked, and anything that unnerved Urza was more than enough for her.
Urza took her suggestion to heart. Heat radiated from his face. Waste not, want not, if he could literally burn something from his memory, he could probably survive it, too. Still, she put more distance between them, leading him by the wrist to a rock where he could sit.
"Water, Xantcha. Could you bring me water?"
He was blind, at least to real things. His vision, he'd said, was all spots and bubbles, as if he'd stared too long at the sun. There'd been no sun above the Fourth Sphere, but the dragon had been the target of all the weapons, sorcerous and elemental, that the demons could aim.
"You'll stay right here?" she asked.
"I'll try."
Xantcha didn't ask what he meant. She'd set her feet on enough worlds to have a sharp sense of where she could survive and where she couldn't. Phyrexia and the three worlds after Phyrexia were inhospitable, but this three- moon world was viable. She had her cyst, her heart, and, tucked inside her tunic, an ambulator. If Urza vanished before she returned, it wouldn't be the end of her.
Heavy rains had fallen recently. Xantcha saw water at the base of the hill where they emerged from between- worlds. Carrying it was another matter. She quenched her thirst from her own cupped hands, but for Urza she stripped off her tunic, sopped it in the water, and carried it, dripping, up the hill.
Urza's attempt to remain seated atop the rock had been successful. Silhouetted against the softly lit night sky, his shoulders were slumped forward, and his chin had disappeared in the shadows of his armored tunic. His hands lay inert in his lap.
"Urza?"
His chin rose.
"I've brought you water, without grace or dignity."
"As long as it is wet."
She guided his hand to the sopping cloth. "Quite wet."
Urza sucked moisture from the cloth, then wiped his face. When he'd finished, he let her tunic fall. Xantcha sat at his feet.
"Is there anything more I can do for you? Will you eat? Food might help. I smell berries. It's summer here."
He shook his head. "Just sit beside me. Sleep, if you can, child. Morning will come, a summer morning."
Xantcha fought into her tunic. The night was cool, not cold. The garment was uncomfortable, nothing worse. Discomfort was nothing unfamiliar. She got comfortable against the rock. Urza shifted his hand to the top of her head.
"I told you to stay behind."