Despite his incursion into Phyrexia, and Lady Serra's assertion that Xantcha wholly and entirely differed from any born man or woman, Urza wouldn't surrender his belief that she'd been stolen from her parents and abominably transformed by her Phyrexian captors. She no longer bothered arguing the point with him. It was reassuring to be treated as he had always treated her.
"I would destroy it, if I could find a way to return what it has taken. But that mystery does not solve itself easily, and I cannot devote my energies to it until I have determined the first plane of the Phyrexians and my vengeance has feasted on their entrails. You will understand that vengeance must come first."
Xantcha nodded unnecessarily. Urza had not asked her a question. His concentration did not extend beyond his own thoughts, and he didn't notice her head moving.
"Serra and I determined that the true number of natural planes in the multiverse cannot be counted, even by an immortal. If one started at the beginning, new planes would have emerged, and old planes would have disappeared before the count was concluded. This is not, however, an insurmountable problem, as we can be certain that the Phyrexians were not driven away from a freshly engendered
plane, and while it would be a tragedy if their keystone plane had succumbed to entropy and reorganization, we need not blame ourselves for the loss. Thus, it is only necessary that I start somewhere and proceed with great precision until I reach the end, which, with the multiverse, is also the beginning. Do you understand what this means?'
Xantcha nodded again, confident that Urza would continue explaining himself until her answer was truthful.
"Good. I will, of necessity, 'walk lightly. I had thought of creating my own plane, since such planes are always accessible across the chasm, but I would have to create a plane in which both you and I could thrive, and Serra told me that such a creation would be quite difficult to manage. Black essence, which is to say your essence, and white, which is mine, are deeply opposed to each other and virtually impossible to balance in the microcosm of a created plane. Now, I do not shirk challenges, but I must avenge my brother before I allow myself the pleasures of pure research, thus I have put creation out of my mind. I will make do with bolt-holes such as this, which I will forge and relocate as I have need of them. There is an element of proximity in the multiverse, and eventually one is within an easy 'walk of a particular plane.
"This should be an especial relief to you, Xantcha, since I will keep your heart in such a place where it cannot be lost or disturbed. It is also useful for me, since when I know where you are, I also know where your heart is, and contrariwise as well. And Serra has returned that crystal pendant I gave you while I was fleeing Phyrexia." He fished it out of one of the many boxes and draped it around Xantcha's neck. "You, I, and your heart and my pendant together make a single unit, a triangle, the strongest of angled structures. None of us can get lost."
Triangles ... triangles with four points? It had to be mathematics.... Of all the lessons Xantcha had been taught in the Fane of Flesh, mathematics had come hardest. She'd long since learned that she didn't need to understand the why of mathematics if she simply followed all the rules. If the rules turned her heart into one of a triangle's four parts, she'd keep quiet about it. And she'd survive with her heart in a niche on an airless moon the same way she'd survived the centuries when it had lain in the Phyrexian vault.
"What do you need of me?" she asked, hoping to forestall any further discussion of unimaginable triangles.
"You are good at sniffing out Phyrexians. When we reach a plane, I want you to explore it, as you would anyway, looking for infestations."
"I'll need to use the sphere, is that all right?" The modifications remained a sore point between them. "You'll fix it so it isn't black anymore?"
Urza ignored her questions. "For me, being somewhere quickly is easier than getting there slowly. I will search for the victors, the folk who drove the Phyrexians out and forced them to create Phyrexia."
You will do what you want, Xantcha thought in the most private corner of her mind. Of course, so would she. Life was never better than when she was soaring the windstreams, chasing her curiosity, trading trinkets with strangers, and
collecting the stories that born-folk told.
"What do I do if I find a Phyrexian infestation?" She liked the word, her mind filled with possible ways to drive out an infestation.
"You run away. The moment you are aware of Phyrexians, you hide yourself in the meeting place I'll point out to you, and you wait for me. I'll take no more chances with you and Phyrexians. You are vulnerable to them, Xantcha. It's no fault of yours-you're brave and good-spirited-but they tainted you. You are a bell goat and after you followed me to Phyrexia, my enemies were able to use you to find me-much as I will use your heart to find you."
I never told you the Ineffable's name. That's how they found you. Xantcha thought, but said nothing. She'd made her choice to stay with Urza, even knowing his obsessions and madness. If he reordered his memories of the past to absolve himself of blame or responsibility, well-he'd done it before and he'd do it again. Xantcha believed in vengeance against Phyrexia and believed that Urza, with all his flaws, stood a better chance of achieving it than she.
So they began their quest for the victors, the folk who'd driven the Phyrexians out of the natural multiverse. Urza set his mark on each world they visited, regardless of its hospitality. That way, he said, they would know when they'd come full circle. Xantcha wasn't certain about the full circle notion; it raised some of the same problems as a four-pointed triangle, but the marks kept them from accidentally exploring the same world twice.
It was no surprise to Xantcha that they found very few hospitable worlds where the Phyrexians had not made an appearance. She'd been a dodger. She knew about the relentless explorations carried out by the searcher- priests. The first few decades after leaving Serra's realm, she'd spent most of her time huddled up at whatever meeting place Urza designated, then gradually Urza had relaxed his rules. She could wander freely, provided she encountered no active Phyrexians.
Thus began a long, golden period of wandering the multiverse. Every handful of worlds held one that was hospitable enough for Xantcha to exchange Urza's armor for the sphere. Every ten or twelve handfuls of hospitable worlds revealed one that was interesting, at least to Xantcha. She became the tourist who delighted in minor variations, while Urza was on a single-minded quest.
"They were here," he said when they rejoined each other. They met in a white stone grotto of a world where elves were the dominant species and civilization was measured by forests, not cities.
"I know," Xantcha agreed, having found the spoor of two searcher expeditions and heard tales of demons with glistening, metallic skin in several languages. "Searchers came through a good long time ago. They're remembered as demons and the bringers of chaos. They came through again, maybe a thousand local years ago, but only in a few places. They collected beasts both times, I think. There's metal here, but no mines. The searchers will come back again. They're waiting for the elves to do the hard work of opening the ground."
Urza nodded though he wasn't happy. "How did you learn such things? There are no centers of learning here, few
records in the ground or above it. I have found it most frustrating!"
"I talk to everyone, Urza. I trade with them," she explained, handing Urza a sack filled with trinkets and treasures, her profits from three seasons' wandering. He'd take them to the bolt-hole where he kept her heart. "Everyone has a story,"