"There is no shame to it, Xantcha," Urza said moments later when they stood on a hillside above the seacoast principality of Russiore. "He is a young man and you prefer yourself as a woman. I heard you laughing with him last night. I racked my memory but I don't think I've ever heard you or him so happy. It does my old bones good. After Russiore, I shall go off and leave you two alone together."
Urza vanished then, which was just as well, Xantcha needed to breathe and couldn't until he was gone.
Una's bones, she thought with a shudder. Urza doesn't have any bones, she chided herself and yawned out the sphere.
The sphere rose swiftly through the ground breezes until the ocean windstreams caught it and threw it south, an abrupt reminder-as if Xantcha needed one-that she made mistakes when she was distracted. She wove her hand through the wind, pushing the sphere to its limit. Dawn's light revealed Efuand villages. Morning found her walking the market road into Pincar City.
Xantcha had scattered spiders all wintet without once breaking
a sweat, but she was damp and pasty-mouthed when a Red- Stripe guard asked her particulars at the city gate. He had a mortally unpleasant face, a mortally unpleasant smell.
"Ratepe," she told him, "son of Mideah of Medran." Despite anxiety, Xantcha's accent was flawless, and the coins of Russiore were common enough along Gulmany's northern coast that she could offer a few as a bribe, if needs be.
"Here for?"
"I've come to pray before Avohir's holy book on the fifth anniversary of my father's death."
Ratepe had said there was no more solemn obligation in a Efuand son's life. No born Red-Stripe would question it, and no Phyrexian would last long if it did.
"Peace go with you," the Red-Stripe said and touched Xantcha on both cheeks, a gesture which Ratepe had warned her to expect. "May your burdens be lifted."
Xantcha went through the gate in peace, her burdens
hung from her shoulder, exactly as she'd packed them. She knew where the garrison barracks were and that they'd be swarming with Red-Stripes most of the day. That left the temple, which might be just as busy but was open to anyone who needed Avohir's grace. Ratepe had taught her the necessary prayers, when and where to wash her hands, and not to jump if anyone sprinkled seawater on her head while she was on her knees.
Three thousand years, more worlds than she could count, and always-always-an outsider.
The square altar was as tall as a man and stood on a stairway dais that was almost as high. Xantcha could barely see the holy book laid open atop it, although it was the largest book she'd ever seen-bigger than her bed. A huge cloth of red velvet covered the altar from the book to the dais. As Xantcha watched from the back of the sanctuary, an old man climbed the dais steps on his knees. At the top he lifted the velvet over his head and shoulders. He was letting Avohir dry his tears; she would be affixing Ratepe's spiders.
Xantcha claimed a space at the end of the line of mourners, petitioners, and cripples shuffling along a marked path to the dais where a red-robed priest guarded the steps. She was under the great dome, halfway to the altar, when a second priest came to take the place of the first. The second priest also wore a red robe with its cowl drawn up. His beard, as black as Ratepe's hair, spilled onto his chest.
Shratta, Xantcha thought, remembering what Ratepe had told her in the burning village.
He'd been at his post a few moments before the air brought her the scent of glistening oil.
Xantcha tried to get a look within the priest's cowl as her turn on the dais stairway neared. The oil scent was strong, but no stronger than with other sleepers. She didn't expect to see glowing or lidless eyes and his-itshands, which she tried unsuccessfully to avoid, had a fleshy feel around hers.
"Peace be with you," he said, more sincere than the guard. Xantcha held her breath when he touched her cheeks. "May your burdens be lifted."
The path was clear, as simple as that, as simple as Ratepe had promised it would be. She hobbled on her knees, like everyone else, raised the velvet drape and flattened an artifact against the dark stone. A second spider on the opposite side would be a good idea, four would be better. Xantcha gazed up into the dome as she left, looking for a sphere-sized escape hole.
There were no holes in the roof, but there was one in the wall-an archway into a cloister where a few laymen in plain clothes appeared to be continuing their prayers. Xantcha took the chance and joined them. No one challenged her, and after she bruised her knees a while longer, she yawned out Urza's armor and left the cloister through a different door.
The smell of oil was stronger in the corridor beyond the cloister. Not a great surprise. She was in the priests' private quarters now. The corridors were poorly ventilated, and under such circumstances she'd expected the taint to thicken, but there was something more. Xantcha palmed a
handful of screaming spiders from her sack, affixed them to the wall, and pressed deeper into the tangled chambers behind the sanctuary. The scent grew stronger and more complex. She suspected there was an ambulator nearby, or perhaps one of the vertical disks she'd seen so long ago in Moag.
We call them priests, she reminded herself, although there were no gods in Phyrexia, only the Ineffable, and blind obedience wasn't religion.
Midway down a spiral stairway, Xantcha encountered a priest rushing for the surface. Without a gesture or apology, he shoved her against the spiral's spine. She slipped down two, treacherously narrow, steps before catching her balance. The scent of glistening oil was heavy in his wake, but except in rudeness, he hadn't noticed her.
In her mind, Xantcha heard Ratepe muttering, Phyrexians: no imagination! Ratepe was young. He hid his fears in sarcasm. She put one of his stone-shattering spiders on the spiral's spine.
The stairway ended in a vaulted crypt. Light came from a pair of filthy lanterns and Phyrexian glows attached haphazardly to the stone ribs overhead. The sight of Phyrexian artifacts answered a wealth of questions and left her feeling anxious within Urza's armor. Xantcha thought again of Moag and wondered if she shouldn't scurry back to Russiore, confess her deceit when Urza came for her, and let him explore the crypt instead of her. But the truth was that Xantcha feared Urza's anger more than she feared Phyrexia.
Tiptoeing forward, Xantcha silently apologized to Ratepe. The crypt's air was pure Phyrexia. Not only was there some sort of passageway in Avohir's temple, it was wide open. She might have to tell Urza what she'd found, after she knew what it was, after she'd shared her discoveries with Ratepe, with Mishra.
Xantcha came to another door, the source of a fetid Phyrexian breeze. She hesitated. She had her armor, a boot knife and a handful of fuming coins, a passive defense and no offense worth mentioning. Wisdom said, this is foolish, then she heard a sound behind her, on the spiral stairs, and wisdom said, hide!
Three steps beyond the door the corridor jogged sharply to the right and into utter darkness. Xantcha put one hand behind her back and finger-walked into the unknown. The loudest sound was the pulsing in her ears. She had a sense that she'd entered a larger chamber when the breeze died.
She had a sense, too, that she wasn't alone; she was right.
"Meatling."
Thirty-four hundred years, give or take a few decades, and Xantcha knew that voice instantly.
"Gix."
Light bloomed around him, gray, heavy light such as shone on the First Sphere, light that wasn't truly light, but visible darkness. Xantcha thought the demon was the light's source and needed a moment to discern the upright disk gleaming behind him.
Gix had changed since the last time she'd seen him, corroded, crumbling, and thrust into a fumarole. He'd changed since the first time, too-taller. She looked at his