Xantcha glanced behind the stranger's shoulders. Urza had devised a code, simple hand and facial movements for moments when they were among mind-skimmers. She made the sign for danger and received the sign for negation in response. Urza wasn't worried as the stranger led them through a simple stone-built gate and into a tall, open- roofed atrium.
There were others in the atrium, a woman at an open hearth, stirring a pot of stew that was the source of the onions Xantcha had smelled earlier, two other women and a man, all adults, all individuals, yet bound by a familial resemblance. An ancient sat in a wicker chair-wrinkled, toothless, and nearly bald. Xantcha couldn't guess if she beheld a man or a woman. Beyond the ancient, in another atrium, two half-grown children dangled strings for a litter of kittens, while a round-faced toddling child watched her from behind the banister at the top of a stairway.
Of them all, only the toddler betrayed even a faint distrust of uninvited guests. Where moments earlier Xantcha had warned Urza of danger, she now began to wonder why the household seemed so unconcerned. Didn't they see her knives and sword? Had they no idea what a 'walker could do- especially a 'walker named Urza?
"There is a portion for you," the hearth-side woman said specifically to Xantcha, as she ladled out a solitary bowl and set it on the table that ran the length of the atrium. Like the man who'd met them on the road, she spoke Argivian, but with a faint accent. "You must be hungry after your journey here."
Xantcha was hungry. She caught Urza's eyes again and passed the general sign that asked, What should I do?
"Eat," he said. "The food smells delicious."
But a second bowl wasn't offered-as if they knew a 'walker never needed to eat.
Xantcha sat in a white chair at a white table, eating stew from a white bowl. Everything that could have had a chosen color, including the floors and the walls, was white and sparkling clean. Except for the spoon in the bowl. It was plain wood, rubbed until it was satin smooth. She used it self-consciously, afraid she'd dribble and embarrass herself-both distinct possibilities, distracted as she was by conversations between Urza and the others that she couldn't quite overhear.
The stew was plain but tasty. If there was time, she'd like to see the garden where they grew their vegetables and the fields where they harvested their grain. It was a
meatless stew-somehow that didn't surprise her-with egg drizzled in the broth, and pale chunks, like cubes of soft cheese, a bit smaller than her thumb, taking the place of meat. The chunks had the texture of soft cheese, but not the taste; indeed, they had no taste that Xantcha could discern, and she was tempted to leave them in the bowl until the woman asked her if the meal was pleasing to a wanderer's palate.
The auburn-haired man's name was Romom, the cook was Tessu, the other names left no impression in Xantcha's mind, save for Brya, the toddler at the top of the stairs. When Xantcha had finished her second bowl of stew and a mug of excellent cider, Tessu suggested a hot bath in an open, steaming pool. Xantcha had no wish to display her newt's undifferentiated flesh before strangers and declined the offer. Tessu suggested sleep in a room of her own
"Facing the mountain."
It was a privilege of some sort, but Xantcha declined a second time. She pushed away from the spotless white table and took a cautious stride toward the pillow-sitting knot of folk gathered around Urza. Opposition never materialized. The family made room for her between the two women whose names Xantcha couldn't remember. Urza gave her the finger sign for silence. The family discussed stars and myths. They used unfamiliar names, but all the other words were accented Argivian with only a few lapses of syntax or vocabulary. It wasn't their native language, yet they'd all learned it well-enough for an esoteric conversation that couldn't, in any meaningful sense, include her or Urza.
Xantcha twisted her fingers into an open question, and Urza replied with the sign for silence. Silence wasn't difficult for Xantcha, unless it was imposed. She fidgeted and considered joining the youngsters still playing with the kittens until Tessu shuttled them upstairs. The conversation began to flag and for the first time since they'd entered the austerely decorated atrium, the air charged with anticipation. Even at the edge of time there were, apparently, conversations that could be held only after the children had gone to bed.
Tessu and Romom together brought the ancient to what had been Romom's place on Urza's right. Then everyone shuffled about to make room for the pair-who Xantcha had decided were husband and wife, if not lord and lady-on the opposite side of the circle.
"You have questions," the ancient said. The voice gave no clues to the grizzled figure's sex, but the accent was thick. Xantcha had to listen closely to distinguish the words. "No one comes to Equilor without questions."
Urza made two signs, one with each hand, silence and observe, before he said, "I have come to learn my enemies' weakness."
The two men exchanged glances, one triumphant, an ongoing dispute settled at last. Against all reason, these folk had been expecting them, exactly them: Urza from Argive and a companion who'd been glad of a hot meal at the end of a long day. But they hadn't known for certain why, and that made less sense. If you knew Urza well enough to know his name and where he was headed, then surely you knew what had driven him through the multiverse to Equilor.
The men, however, said nothing. Like Xantcha, they
seemed relegated to silence, waiting for the ancient to speak again.
"Equilor is not your enemy. Equilor has no enemies. If you were an enemy of Equilor, you would not have found us."
Another created plane like Phyrexia and Serra's realm, accessible only across a fathomless chasm-which Urza hadn't mentioned?
"I am a seeker, nothing more," Urza countered, as formal and constrained as Xantcha had ever heard him. "I sensed no defenses as I 'walked."
"We would not intimidate our enemies, Urza. We would not encourage them to test their courage. We knew you were a seeker. We permitted you to find what you sought. The elders will see you."
By which the ancient implied that he, or she, was not one of the elders. Perhaps the term was an honorific, not dependent on age. Xantcha would have liked to ask an impertinent question or two, but Urza's fingers remained loosely in their silence and observe positions.
"And I will ask them about Phyrexia. Have you heard of it?"
There was considerable movement in the circle. Xantcha couldn't observe it all, but Phyrexia was not unknown to the household.
The ancient said one word, "Misguided," which seemed sufficient to everyone but Urza and Xantcha.
"More than misguided," Urza sputtered. "They are a force of abomination, of destruction. They have set themselves against my plane, and I have sworn vengeance against them in the name of my brother, my people, and the Thran."
That word, "Thran," also brought an exchange of glances, less profound than what had followed Phyrexia.
"Misguided," the ancient repeated. "Foolish and doomed. The elders will tell you more."
"So, you know of them! I'm convinced that they were banished from their natal plane before they created Phyrexia. I am looking for that plane. If it is not Equilor, I hope that you can tell me where it is. I have heard that whatever is known in the multiverse is known to Equilor."
The ancient nodded. "The ones you seek have never come to Equilor. They are young, as you are young. Youth does not often come to Equilor."
"They fought the Thran over six thousand of my years ago, and I myself have walked the planes for over two millennia."