Planeswalker (22 page)

A silver globe appeared in Urza's hand. He cocked his
arm.

"Go ahead, throw it. Then what? Make me into another
mistake you can mourn? You can't change the past, Urza. The
Phyrexians were here before I found them. Empty-headed fool
that I am, I thought you'd want to know whatever I could
learn, however I learned it. Waste not, want not, I thought
you'd be glad I survived!" The globe vanished in a shower
of bright red sparks. "I am. Truly. But they will have
found me."

"Phyrexians are here, Urza. It's not necessarily the
same thing. How do you suppose they found Dominaria in the
first place? Searcher-priests look for more than artifacts.
That thing-" Xantcha gestured at the metal-mesh head-"had a
face no one would look twice at. The searchers have found a
nice, little world, ripe for the plucking. They've set
themselves up in the fire god's cult because what Phyrexia
needs more than artifacts is ore for its furnaces, and
Moag's a metal-rich world."

"They'll destroy Moag, Xantcha. It will all happen
again." "Well, isn't that what you've been waiting for, a
chance to right old wrongs?"

"No. No, the price is too high."

"Urza!" Xantcha lost patience with him. "Forget about

listening to me, do you ever listen to yourself?"

He stared at her, mortal-eyed, but as if she were a
stranger rather than his companion of the centuries. "Go,
Xantcha. I need to think. I will come for you at the full
moon."

"Maybe I don't want to 'walk away from this. Maybe I
want my vengeance!"

"Go, child! You're disturbing me. I must think. I will
tell you my decision when I've made it, not before."

They were back to child again, and he had made his
decision. Xantcha had been with Urza too long not to know
when he was lying to her. He'd made a hole in the roof, and
she took advantage of it. She gathered the weapons she
hadn't discarded and the sack that held her traveling stash
of gold and gems, these things the midden hadn't damaged at
all. Only the sack desperately needed replacing, so she
took one of Urza's and swapped the contents before yawning
out the sphere. The hole closed as soon as she'd passed
through it.

Morning had come, a beautiful morning with mackerel
clouds streaking north by northeast, the direction Xantcha
needed, if she were going back to her cottage, which she
decided after a heartbeat's thought that she wasn't.
Xantcha set her mind south, to the fire god's city. Urza
was going to leave Moag, and despite her threats, Xantcha
knew she'd go with him, but if he'd intended simply to
leave, they could have 'walked already. They'd left other
worlds with less warning. No, Urza had something planned,
and Xantcha wanted to witness it.

As soon as Xantcha reached the coast, she found a
prosperous villa and sneaked into it by moonlight. She left
two silver coins and another world's garnet brooch on a
night stand, in exchange for her pick of the young heir's
wardrobe. His britches were tight and his boots too big,
but overall she considered it a fair swap. She didn't
linger until sunrise to learn the household's opinion.

Xantcha scuffed up her fine clothes when she reached
the southern city and wove a tale of tragedy and
coincidence for the apothecary whose shop window had the
best view of the fire god's temple. The owl-eyed merchant
didn't believe a word Xantcha said, but she could read,
count, and compound a script better than either of his
journeymen. He took her in with the promise of two meals a
day, one hot, one cold, and a night-pallet across the
threshold, which was what she'd wanted from the start.

She settled in to wait: one day, two days, three, four.
Urza came on the fifth. Or rather, a ball of fire descended
from the stars during the fifth night. It struck the temple
with hideous force. Masonry, stone and burning timbers flew
across the plaza, smashing through shutters and walls.
Xantcha got her sword from its hiding place, bid an
unobserved farewell to the apothecary, then went hunting
for Phyrexians through the smoke.

Xantcha found a few, as terrified as any born-folk, or
more so since glistening oil burnt with a hot blue flame.
She put an end to their misery and with her armor to
protect her from both flames and smoke made her way into
the sanctuary. The journeymen had succumbed to her
questions, and told her where the fire god's priests had
their private quarters. Which was where Xantcha expected to

find-and steal-another ambulator.

She found a passage back to Phyrexia, but it was unlike
any ambulator she'd seen before. Instead of a bottomless
black pool, the flesh-faced priests had a solid-seeming
disk that rose edgewise from the stone floor. Face on, it
was as black as the ambulators Xantcha was familiar with.
From behind, it simply wasn't there. One thing hadn't
changed; it still had a palm-sized panel with seven black
jewels where the disk emerged from the floor. Since she
couldn't roll the standing-portal up and take it with her,
Xantcha smashed the panel with her sword.

Smoke and screams belched out of the black disk before
it collapsed. Xantcha guessed she'd closed it just in time.
A pair of lines gouged into the stone was all that remained
when the smoke cleared. She was rummaging through shelves
and cabinets, hoping to find a familiar ambulator, when the
air grew heavy. The other kind of between-worlds passage,
Urza's kind of 'walking passage, was opening.

"It's me!" she shouted as he came into view.

"Xantcha! What are you doing here? I could have killed
you."

They never had established whether Urza's armor would
protect her from Urza's wrath or Urza's mistakes.

"I came for the ambulator. I knew they'd have one, and
I wasn't sure you'd think to roll it." He hadn't when he
rode the dragon into Phyrexia. "It was a new kind," she
admitted. "I couldn't roll it up."

Urza stared at the lines in the floor. "No, it was a
very old kind. Did you destroy it?"

He was so calm and reasonable, it worried her. "Yes. I
broke the gems. There were screams, then nothing."

"Well, perhaps it is enough. If not, I have left my
mark above, and I will leave a trail. Are you ready to
'walk, or are you staying here?"

"You want the Phyrexians to follow us?"

Urza nodded, smiling, and held out his hand. "I want
them to pursue us with all their strength and leave Moag in
peace."

Xantcha took his hand and said, "I don't think it works
that way," but they were between-worlds and her words were
lost.

Xantcha never knew if the second part of Urza's plan
bore fruit, but the first was successful beyond his wildest
dreams. He stopped laying a deliberate trail after the
fourth world beyond Moag, but that didn't stop the
searcher-priests and the avenger teams they led.

Sometimes she and Urza got a year's respite between
attacks, never more. Urza reached into his past for
sentries he called Yotians, never-fail guardians shaped
from whatever materials a new world offered: clay, stone,
wood, or ice.

He'd 'walked her to ice worlds before. They were dark,
airless places where the sun was lost among the stars and
the ice as hard as steel. Save for the gas worlds, where
there was no solid ground at all, ice worlds were the least
hospitable worlds in the multi-verse. They never stayed
long on ice, no matter how close the pursuit.

Then, years after Moag by Urza's reckoning, he found a
world where the ice was melting, and the air was cold but
breathable. Once it had been a world like Moag. Whole
forests and cities could be glimpsed through the ice when
the light was right. Now it was a brutal place, with men
who'd forgotten what cities were.

Xantcha thought it was as inhospitable as any airless
world, but Urza disagreed and she was disinclined to argue.
He hadn't slept soundly since they left Moag. The simple
act of closing his eyes was enough to trigger the
nightmares-hallucinations of the past, of the Ineffable. To
Xantcha's abiding horror, the forbidden name had returned
to Urza's memory and came easily to him when he battled
through his nightmares.

Years without proper sleep had taken their toll. Urza's
restlessness had grown into a sort of frenzy. He was never
still, always pacing or wringing his hands. He babbled
constantly. Xantcha fashioned wax earplugs so she could
sleep. With Phyrexians on their trail, they never strayed
far apart.

And Urza needed her. Without her, Urza often didn't
know what was real from what was not. Without her gentle
nagging, he would have forgotten to carve the Yotians or
given them the appropriate orders. Without her willingness
to brave his hallucinations he would have gouged the
gemstone eyes from his skull and put an end to his misery.

Sitting on the opposite side of a fire, with a score of
icy Yotians clanking patrol through the frigid night,
Xantcha wondered if she should let him die. They were each
over eight hundred years old and though she could still
pass for an unbearded youth, Urza looked his age, or worse.
The arcane power that enabled him to change his appearance
at will had become erratic. On nights like tonight, even
though he wasn't hallucinating, Urza seemed to be
surrounded by a between-worlds miasma. Viewed from some
angles, he had no substance at all, just seething light
that hurt her eyes.

"Will you eat? Can you eat?" Xantcha asked gently,
trying to ignore the way the hearth flames were visible
through his robes.

Food was no substitute for sleep and dreams, but it
helped keep Urza looking mortal. She'd seasoned the stew
pot with the aromatic herbs that had tempted him before.
But it didn't work this time.

"I'm hollow," he said, a disturbingly accurate
assessment. "Food won't fill me, Xantcha. Eat all you can.
Pack the rest. I feel the eyes of the multiverse upon us."

Xantcha lost her appetite. When Urza thought the
multiverse was watching him, Phyrexians weren't usually far
behind. She forced down a small portion-the between-worlds
was easier on a near-empty stomach-and filled a waterskin
with the rest. The ice-shaped Yotians were almost as
restless as Urza. Xantcha slung the waterskin and other
essentials from a shoulder harness and checked her weapons.
The second-best way to deal with Phyrexians was to batter
them apart. She'd long since abandoned her Moag sword in
favor of a short club with a jagged chunk of pure iron for
its head.

The best way to deal with Phyrexian avengers, however,
was to hide, and let Urza demolish them with sorcery and

artifice, then wait until he shaped himself into a man
again. Waiting was the difficult part. As the years and
worlds and ambushes accumulated, Urza had never had a
problem vanquishing the avengers, but increasingly he lost
himself in the aftermath. Two ambushes ago, he'd devolved
into a pillar of rainbow light that shimmered for three
days before condensing into a solid, familiar form.
Considering the brutal, backwater worlds they frequented,
Xantcha desperately wanted an ambulator and the wherewithal
to set its black stones for a hospitable world.

She'd raised the subject as often as she'd dared, which
didn't include this night with the ice Yotians clattering
like crystals through the shadows.

The ambush came at dawn, in gusts of hot, sour
Phyrexian wind. There were a score of them, not counting
the two searcher-priests who squatted beside the flat-black
ambulator. This time the avengers resembled huge turtles
with bowl-shaped carapaces and four broad, shovel-like
feet, ideal for churning through snow and ice. Instead of
claws or teeth, their weapons were beams of dark radiance
that shot through an opening where a turtle's head would
emerge from its shell.

Xantcha left the turtles for Urza and the Yotians. Safe
in her armor and screaming loudly, she charged the
searcher-priests instead, hoping to steal their ambulator.
They took one look at her and retreated into the ambulator,
rolling it up behind them, abandoning the avengers. She
cursed them for their cowardice, but searchers were hard to
replace. They were subtle for Phyrexians, far more subtle
than avengers who, because they were so powerful, were also
stupid.

She supposed the searchers could bring reinforcements,
though, so far, once they left, they'd stayed gone. But the
other skirmishes had been over sooner. Ice was not the
ideal defense when the avengers' weapon was heat. The
Yotians had been utterly destroyed without bringing down a
single Phyrexian, which meant that Urza had to face them
all. He had the skill and power, though the turtles were a
bit tougher, a bit nastier they'd been in the last ambush,
as if Phyrexia were learning from its failures-a
frightening notion in and of itself.

There were only eight of the avengers left. Urza had
destroyed two of those with dazzling streaks of raw power
from his jeweled eyes. No one learned faster than Urza. He
never tired nor depleted his resources. So long as there
was substance beneath his feet or stars in the sky
overhead, Urza the Artificer could work his uniquely potent
magic.

Then, suddenly, his strikes became indecisive.

A turtle scuttled forward unchallenged and knocked Urza
backward; the first time Xantcha had ever seen him touched
in battle. He destroyed it with a glut of flame, but not
before the other turtles pelted him with bursts of
darkness.

After that Xantcha expected Urza to make short work of
the enemy. Instead he became vaporous, a man of light and
shadow. A turtle paw passed directly through him. Xantcha
thought it was another of Urza's tactical surprises, until
she watched his counter-strike pass through the turtle.

Xantcha had imagined the end many times, but she never

thought the end would come from turtles on an ice-bound
world.