Planeswalker (28 page)

Xantcha was relieved to see Urza looking vigorous
again, pleased to see him talking and moving in a mortal
way, but she could not escape the implications of those few
words: since I met you. They echoed ominously in her own
thoughts. Had Urza decided something, perhaps everything,
was her fault?

That warm greeting in the lower hall had been less
relief or enthusiasm, than guilt.

Xantcha glanced at Serra, wondering what role she had
played. Romance? That seemed unlikely with Urza ...
unnecessary, too, when she could distract him with the
cocoon. After she'd gotten rid of Urza's annoying,
Phyrexian companion?

"You want to know what I did when you were found?"
Serra asked, an indication that she was sensitive to
thought and, perhaps, did not find Xantcha's mind as empty
as Urza did.

"I know what you did, why did you do it? What had I
done to you or your perfect realm?"

"All things, natural or artifact, are created around a
single essence. Your essence is black mana. When I created
my plane, I created it around white mana, because the
underlying essence plays a pivotal role in determining the
character of a thing. White mana is serene, harmonic. It
has the constancy that allows my plane to be the safe haven
I desired. Black mana is discord, suspicion, and darkness.
There is black mana here-it was not possible to eliminate
it entirely-but it is only the small remainder that

balances the rest-"

"I told you it is not so simple," Urza interrupted
their host. "Lady Serra turned away from all that was real
to make this place. She created it out of sheer will. But
it seems there is a flaw, a fallacy, in willful creation.
Outside, in the multiverse which is unbounded, balance
simply is and all planes are balanced among all the
essences. Inside, when a plane is created by an act of
single will, balance is impossible. One essence must
dominate and another become the odd fellow."

"I knew this place reminded me of Phyrexia!"
Momentarily forgetting everything else, Xantcha savored the
satisfaction of solving a thorny puzzle. "The teacher-
priests said the Ineffable made Phyrexia. I thought they
meant that we all answered to him, that we were all part of
his plan, but it was more than that. The Ineffable created
Phyrexia. It was nothing, nothing at all, before he made
it."

"Precisely," Urza agreed. "I had reached the same
conclusion. A created plane, cut off from the rest of the
multiverse by an unfathomable chasm, no wonder it was so
hard to find! But, inherently unbalanced! Think of it,
Xantcha. Lady Serra retreats to her cocoon where she adds
her will to her plane's flux, constantly keeping it almost
in balance, but never quite and never for long. It always
slips away. She prunes it to keep it small-"

"Small's never been a part of the Ineffable's plan-"

"Excuse me!" Serra said firmly and in her own language,
which neither Xantcha nor Urza had been using.

The air in Xantcha's lungs became so heavy she couldn't
speak and even Urza seemed to be at a loss for words.

"As I was saying." The lady's tone implied she'd
tolerate no more interruptions. "The only black mana here
is here because it cannot be eliminated. Nothing here has
black mana as its underlying essence. Such a thing, natural
or artifact, would disrupt everything around it. When the
archangels found you and Urza, both near death and unable
to speak for yourselves, they-I- determined that you had
swallowed a piece of him. You were clinging to him. And
your essence was black-is black.

"They have standing orders. Safe haven cannot be
extended to anything with an underlying black mana essence.
Because you had a piece of him, and we did not know then if
it was a vital piece, I sent you away-put you in
quarantine-while my cocoon restored Urza. His underlying
essence is white mana, the same as ours. There was no risk.
The cocoon purged him of a black mana curse."

The Ineffable, Xantcha thought. The Ineffable had place
a spark in Urza's skull as surely as Gix had placed one in
hers all those centuries ago. She said nothing, though,
because Serra would object, and because she wanted to hear
Urza's version of events before proposing her own.

If black mana was suspicion, then Xantcha had become
black mana incarnate.

"It was not a vital piece, of course," Serra continued.
"Urza explained how he'd enabled you to survive the
journeys between planes when he emerged from the cocoon,
but by then ..."

By then, what? Xantcha asked silently, eager to hear
how Serra would wriggle free of the truth.

The lady hesitated and Urza plunged into the silence.
"By then, her plane needed tending. She needed tending!
Your presence alone had been enough to disrupt the balance
more than it had ever been disrupted. You were well and
truly lost by then, and I had no idea that you'd survived
at all. My grasp had been weak to begin with. I asked the
elders here, and they said I'd been alone when archangels
brought me to the palace."

"They lied," Xantcha snapped, unable to stifle her
indignation. She wished Kenidiern had not taken his leave.
She'd liked to have seen his face when he'd heard that
remark.

"Misinformed," Urza prevaricated. "I was alone. The
archangels separated us, took us in different directions.
The sisterhood had no idea what I was talking about."

"They knew, Urza. They sent Sosinna to die with me-" At
least that was what Sosinna had assumed. But there were
other possibilities. Serra said she had decided what would
be done with her and Urza both. Xantcha looked straight at
Serra. "Someone sent Sosinna to die with me."

"I cannot keep up with you!" the lady complained.
"Either of you. You should hear yourselves, switching
languages every other phrase, every other word. You have
been together too long. No one else could possibly
understand you." She took Urza's hand. "My friend, my offer
stands, I will take her wherever you think best, but this
is something for you to work out between yourselves. That
piece of you she holds within her, surely it is a vital
part of your memory, Urza. You should consider carefully
before abandoning it."

Serra faded, 'walking somewhere else within her realm,
leaving Urza and Xantcha alone in the golden light from the
cocoon.

"What offer, Urza? Abandon it? Abandon me?"

But Urza was staring at the place where Serra had
stood, "She was angry. I had no notion, no notion at all.
You should not have done that, Xantcha. It was very
ungracious to speak your mind in a way that Lady Serra
couldn't understand. She doesn't understand that the
Phyrexians emptied your mind. I must find her and
apologize."

He started to fade as well.

"Urza!" Xantcha called him back. "Waste not, want not-
you don't hear the words or their meanings! She said both
of us. We were both speaking whatever words fit best. We do
that, we've done it from the beginning. We've been too many
places and seen too many things that no one else has seen.
We have our own way of talking. We might just as well be
one mind with two bodies."

"No! That can't be," he insisted. "Lady Serra is a
Planeswalker. You aren't. She saw great tragedy, as I did
on Dominaria, and she made this place, this plane, as a
memorial to what she'd lost. She understands me, Xantcha.
No one else has understood me. I've been happy here with
her."

"Who wouldn't be happy in a world of their own making?
The Ineffable is happy. The Ineffable understood you."

Urza whirled around. "Don't try to tempt me. That trap
is sprung, Xantcha."

"What trap?" she retorted, but beneath the surface her

fears and suspicions had intensified. "What offer, Urza?
What's happened to you while I was floating on that island?
What changed your mind about me?"

"Lady Serra healed me. Her cocoon healed me of all the
taint and curse that Phyrexia has laid on me since Mishra
and I let them back into Dominaria."

He reached for her. Xantcha eluded him.

"It's not your fault, Xantcha. No one is blaming you,
least of all me. The one you call the Ineffable used you.
He could not tempt me directly, so he made you to tempt me,
to lead me to him. Oh, I knew you were dangerous, I've
known that since I rescued you. I knew you could never be
completely trusted, but I thought I was strong enough,
clever enough to use you myself.

"Your Ineffable has lost his power over me, Xantcha.
You were merely his tool, his arrow aimed at my heart. All
these centuries that you've been beside me, I have been
obsessed with simple vengeance. I didn't see the larger
patterns until you were gone. It is all Lady Serra can to
do keep her plane balanced. She knows that some day she
will grow tired and it will fail. She does not let it
expand. Created planes fail. They cannot evolve. They dare
not grow. They are doomed from the moment of their
creation. I understand that now, only natural planes
endure. Yawg-"

"Don't-"

"Your Ineffable was exiled from some other plane before
Dom-inaria. He thinks of Phyrexia not as a safe haven, as
Serra thinks of her realm, but as a place to build a
conquering army. Twice he has tried to conquer Dominaria,
and he will try again. I know it. And I have wasted all my
time looking for Phyrexia, trying to conquer Phyrexia-"

"I told you it couldn't be done."

"Yes. Yes, you did. Your creator knew I would not
believe you. He is mad, but he is also cunning and clever.
That is why he emptied your mind. That is how he tempted me
off the path."

And if the Ineffable was mad, but cunning, what did
that leave Urza? There was truth and logic wound through
Urza's argument. Phyrexia was the Ineffable's creation as
this world of floating islands was Serra's creation, and
Phyrexia was the rallying point for a conquering army. If
all had gone according to plan, Xantcha would have been
part of that army, at least as the demon Gix had conceived
the army while the Ineffable slept... .

Serra slept in the cocoon to keep her world alive. Had
the Ineffable slept for the same reason? Was that why the
priests warned the newts, Never speak the Ineffable's name
lest he be awakened?

"You awoke him," Xantcha said incredulously,
interrupting Urza's diatribe which had gone on while she
asked herself questions. "When you rode your dragon into
Phyrexia you must have awakened the Ineffable."

"No, Xantcha, you will not lead me astray again. I know
what must be done. Yawgmoth is a Planeswalker, like Serra
and me. Only Planeswalkers can create planes, and
Planeswalkers are born in natural worlds. No one born here
can 'walk, no Phyrex-ian can 'walk. So Yawgmoth was born on
a natural plane and driven out. I will find that plane
where Yawgmoth was born, and when I do, I will know his

secrets and his weaknesses. I will find the records of
those who cast him out, and I will learn how they won their
victory. I will find the tools that I need to build the
artifacts that will keep Yawgmoth away from Dominaria and
away from any other natural plane he might covet."

"That's reasonable," Xantcha conceded. "If we knew when
the Ineffable created Phyrexia-"

"No! I have said too much already! You have no thoughts
of your own, Xantcha. Whatever you think, whatever you say,
comes from Yawgmoth. It is not your fault, but I dare not
listen to you. We must go our separate ways, you and I.
Lady Serra discussed this before you arrived. She is
willing to take you to a natural plane she knows. That's
the offer she mentioned. I have not seen it, but she says
it is a green plane, with much water and many different
races. I think it must be like the Dominaria of my youth.
You will do well there, Xantcha."

Xantcha was a breath short of speechless. "You can't
mean that. You can't. Look at me, Urza. I am what I am,
what I've always been. What would a newt like me do forever
on a single world?" Never mind that it had been her destiny
to sleep on such a world....

Urza reached for her and this time caught her. "You've
always done very well for yourself. You trade, you travel,
you learn all their languages, you scratch a little garden
in the dirt. When I rescued you, I never imagined we'd be
together as long as we have been."

"I've never imagined anything else."

"Xantcha, you don't imagine anything that Yawgmoth
didn't put inside your skull. I will win your vengeance,
trust me. You cannot climb into the Lady's cocoon. Black
mana is your underlying essence. The cocoon would destroy
you, or you would destroy it. I'm sorry, but it has to be
this way."

"You can't just abandon me ... not to Serra! Who will
you talk to? Who else understands, truly understands."

"I will miss you, Xantcha, more than you can imagine.
You have been my ward against loneliness and, yes, even
madness. You have a good heart, Xantcha. Even Lady Serra
admits that. She finds no fault with your heart."

Heart.

Xantcha wriggled out of his embrace. "Give me your
knife." She had nothing but her ragged, dirty robe and a
pair of sandals.

Urza had a leather sheath slung from his belt. If it
wasn't real, he could make it real with a thought. "Please,
Urza let me have your knife, any knife."

"Xantcha, don't be foolish. You were always happiest
when we settled in one place."

"I'm not going to be foolish. I just want to borrow
your knife! I'll find something else that's sharp-"

She eyed the cocoon's golden crystals, and Urza
relented. The knife he handed her had a blade no longer
than her longest finger-which would have been plenty long
enough to slash her throat, if she'd been determined to
bleed to death. But Xantcha had never in her life wanted to
die. She wasn't fond of pain, either, when there were other
alternatives, which, at that moment there weren't.