Planeswalker (8 page)

Rat bent over to match her posture, blocking her view
as well. He wouldn't stop talking. "And who are your
friends-the Shratta? You keep strange company: Urza,
Mishra, the Shratta. You're asking for trouble."

Xantcha ignored him. She hunched lower until she could
see beneath Rat's arms. The Red-Stripes were heading into
the same tavern where the slaver drank. "We've got to
leave. Can you walk?"

"Why? I'm not afraid of the Red-Stripes. I'd join them
right now, if they'd have me."

The elders in the first village had warned Xantcha that
the young men had chosen sides, one way or another. It
figured that her Mishra would have Phyrexian inclinations.
She didn't have time to persuade him, so she'd have to out-
bluff him. "Want to hobble over and try? You'd better
hurry. Or do you think the eunuch's saved you a seat?"

"I'm not that stupid. I lost my chance the moment I got
sapped and sold."

"Then stand up and start walking."

"Yes, Master."

Bread, water, and the absence of tight leather around
his neck worked swift wonders for Rat's stamina. He didn't
need Xantcha's help as they walked away from the fountain,
but his natural pride clashed with the chain between his
ankles and guaranteed the sort of attention Xantcha
preferred not to attract. They'd never get through the gate
without an incident, so once they were clear of the plaza,
she chose the narrowest street at each crossing until they
came to a long-abandoned courtyard.

"Good choice, Xantcha. The windows are mortared, the
doors, too-except for the one we came in." Rat kicked at
the rubble and picked up a bone that might have been a
child's leg. "Been here before? Is this where you meet
Urza?"

Xantcha let the comment slide. "Put your foot up here."
She pointed to an overturned pedestal. "I've got to get rid
of that chain."

"With what?" Rat approached the pedestal but kept both
feet on the ground. "Garve's got the key."

Xantcha hefted a chunk of granite. "I'll break it."

"Not with that, you won't. I'll take my chances with
Urza."

She shook her head. "We've got four days' traveling
before then. Waste not, want not, Rat-you can't run. You're
helpless."

He didn't argue and didn't put his foot on the
pedestal, either.

"Do you prefer being chained and hobbled like an
animal?"

"I'm your slave. You bought me. Better keep me hobbled
and helpless, if you want to keep me at all."

"I need a man who can play Mishra's part with Urza. I
give you my word, play the part and you'll be free in a

year." Free to tell Urza's secrets to the Red-Stripes?
Never. But that was a worry for the future. For the
present, "Give me your word."

"The word of a slave," Rat interrupted. "Remember
that." He put his foot on the pedestal. "And be careful."

Xantcha brought the stone down with a crash that was
louder than she'd expected, less effective, too. Perhaps it
would be better to wait. Unfettering a youth who looked
like Mishra might be all that Urza needed to free himself
from the past.

And maybe they'd have to run from the Red-Stripes.

Xantcha understood how Urza must have felt when they
traveled, worried about a companion who couldn't take care
of herself; angry and bitter, too. She smashed the granite
against the chain. Sparks flew, but the links didn't.
Gritting her teeth, Xantcha pounded rapidly but to no
greater success. When she paused for breath, Rat seized her
wrists.

"Don't act the fool."

She could have dropped the stone on his foot and used
both hands to throttle his insolence, and Xantcha might
have, if she hadn't been so astonished to feel his warm,
living flesh against hers. She and Urza touched each other,
casually, but infrequently, and never with particular
passion. Rat's hands shook as he held her, probably because
slavery had weakened him, but there was something more,
something elusive and unnerving. Xantcha was relieved that
he released her the instant their eyes met.

"I'm trying to help you," she said acidly.

"You're not helping, you're just making noise. Noise is
bad, if you're trying to hide. For that matter, why are we
hiding? It's not as if Tucktah's going to tell the Red-
Stripes I'm not your ransomed cousin."

"Just trying to keep you out of trouble."

Rat laughed. "You're too late for that, Xantcha. Now,
why don't we stop playing child's games and go to your
father's house? If Tabarna's laws still mean anything in
this forsaken town, it's illegal for one Efuand to own
another. You're the one who's in trouble for wasting your
father's gold. You paid way too much to ransom me. Is your
father a tyrant or can he be reasoned with?"

Given her disguise, Rat's presumptions weren't
unreasonable. "I don't have a father. I don't live in this
town. I live with Urza and we've got a long-" she
considered telling him about the sphere and decided not to,
"journey and since I have your word ..." She brought the
stone down on the metal.

"You'll be at that all afternoon and halfway through
the night."

Xantcha shrugged. They couldn't leave before then, not
if she were going to use the sphere to get them over the
walls. She smashed the stone again. A flake of granite drew
blood from Rat's shin; the link was unharmed.

Rat rubbed the wound and lowered his leg. "All right. I
don't believe you, but if you're determined to play your
game to its end, there's an easier way to get out of this
town. Do you have any money left?" Xantcha didn't answer,
but Rat had seen her purse and presumably knew it wasn't
empty. "Look, go back to the plaza and pay some farmer to
load me in his wagon ... or, better, find a smith with a

decent hammer and chisel. Get these damn things off the
same way they got put on."

With sleepers in the town, Xantcha didn't want to go
looking for strangers, but there was one farmer in the
plaza market who wasn't a stranger.

"I gave my horse to a fanner with a wagon-"

"You had a horse!?"

"I had no further need of it, so I gave it to a man who
did and promised to care for it."

"Avohir's mercy, you had no need of a horse, so you
gave it away. You didn't even bargain with Tucktah." He
swore again. "I've been sold by a beast to a madman! No, a
mad child. Doesn't you father usually keep you locked up?"

"I could sell you back," Xantcha said coldly. "I
imagine you had a long and pleasant life ahead of you."

She started to retrace their route. Rat followed as
quietly as he could with the chain dragging on the ground.
Once they were back in the plaza, Xantcha told him to wait
in the shadows while she negotiated with the farmer. He
agreed, but measured every wall with his eyes and twisted
each battered link, in the obvious hope that she'd weakened
it, as soon as he thought she couldn't see him.

Well, he'd warned her what his word was worth.

When Xantcha pointed him out to the farmer, he wanted
no part of her plan.

"I'll give you your horse back."

"A horse is no use to a slave with a chain between his
ankles."

"Imagine if you set the slave free, he'd be willing to
travel with you," the farmer countered, still skeptical.

"I forgot to buy the key to his chains."

The farmer hesitated. The slaver and her coffle had
moved on, but the farmer had glanced toward the tavern when
Xantcha had mentioned slaves. Likely he'd watched the whole
scene with her, the slaver, Garve, and Rat.

"Have him come over, and I'll speak to him myself.
Alone."

Moments later, Xantcha told Rat, "It's your choice. He
wants to know if you're worth the risk."

Rat gave Xantcha a look that said liar, and got to his
feet. Xantcha blocked his path.

"Look, I didn't tell him the truth about Una or Mishra
or anything like that, just that we were cousins. And
before, when I gave him the horse, I told him that I was
alone because I'd been traveling with my uncle. We'd been
ambushed by Shratta and everybody but me had been killed.
It was good enough at the time, before I'd spotted you, but
it's going to make things more difficult now."

Rat frowned and shook his head. "If I was as dumb as
you, I'd've died before I learned to walk. What names did
you give him?"

"None," Xantcha replied. "He didn't ask."

"You need a keeper, Xantcha," Rat muttered as he walked
away from her. "You haven't got the sense Avohir gives to
ants and worms."

Rat could have run, or tried to, but chose to get out
of the town instead. The farmer waved for Xantcha to join
them.

"Not saying I believe you, either of you," he said,
offering Xantcha his plain woven cloak to wear instead of

her fancier one. "Climb in quickly now. These are strange
times ... bad times. A man doesn't put his trust in
words; I put mine in Avohir. I'll get you out of Medran,
and Avohir be my judge if I'm wrong."

Xantcha considered stowing her sword in the wagon bed
where Rat rode, with straw and empty baskets piled all
around him to hide the chain. But her slave had a flair for
storytelling. His imagination made her nervous.

"You're not wrong, good man," Rat said cheerfully as he
rearranged the baskets. "Not about my cousin and me, not
about the times, either. Two months ago, I had everything.
Then one night I went carousing with friends who weren't
friends and lost it all. Woke up in chains. I told them who
I was: Ratepe, eldest son of Mideah from Pincar City, and
said my father would ransom me; got a swift kick and a
broken rib. I'd given up hope months ago, but I hadn't
reckoned on my cousin, Arnuwan."

Xantcha jumped when Rat slapped her between the
shoulders. Arnuwan was probably a less conspicuously
foreign name than Xantcha, and the moment Rat introduced
it, the farmer relaxed and offered his.

"Assor," he said and embraced Rat, not her.

Xantcha was used to following someone else. She'd
followed Urza for over three thousand years, but Rat was
different. Rat smiled and told Assor easy tales of pranks
he and Arnuwan had pulled on their elders. He was very
persuasive. She would have believed him herself, if she
hadn't known that she was supposed to be Arnuwan. Of
course, maybe there was an Arnuwan, and maybe Rat's only
lie was that he didn't look at her while he was spinning
out his tales. Maybe he was harmless, but Xantcha, who was
nowhere near as harmless as she pretended to be, hadn't
survived Phyrexia, Urza, and countless other perils, by
assuming that anything was harmless.

She kept her sword close and palmed a few black-metal
coins that hadn't come from any king or prince's mint.
Then, as Assor called home to his harnessed horse, she
settled in for the ride.

Silence hung thick among them. Ordinary folk going
about their late-afternoon affairs looked up as they
passed. Xantcha could think of nothing to say except that
she longed to be in the air, headed back to the cottage,
neither of which were safe subjects for conversation.

Then Rat asked the farmer, "Do you keep sheep in your
fallows, or do you grow peas?" He followed that question
with another and another until he'd lured the fanner into
an animated discussion about the proper way to plow a
field. The farmer favored straight furrows. Rat said a
sunwise spiral toward the center was better. They were in
mid-argument when the Red-Stripes waved the wagon through
the gate.

As they cleared the first rise beyond the town walls,
even Assor realized what Rat had done and while Xantcha
willed away her armor he asked:

"Where are you from, lad? The truth ... no more of your
lies. You're no one's cousin, and I'll wager you're no
farmer either, despite your talk. You're too clever by half
to be village-bred."

Rat grinned and told a different story. "I read, once,
how Hatu-san the Blind, had escaped from a besieged city by

talking about the weather. It seemed worth trying."

"Read about it, eh?" Assor asked before Xantcha could
say that she'd never heard of Hatusan the Blind. "Then, for
certain, you're no farmer. I've never seen a book but
Avohir's holy book and I listen 'stead of read. Is your
name truly Ratepe, eldest son of Mideah?"

Xantcha was watching Rat closely from the corner of her
eye. She caught him flinching as Assor sounded out his
name. His rogue's grin vanished, replaced by an empty stare
that looked at nothing and gave nothing away.

"It is," he answered with a voice that was both deeper
and younger than she'd heard from him before. "And Mideah,
my father, was a farmer when he died-a good farmer who
plowed his fields sunwise every spring and fall. But he was
a lector of philosophy at Tabarna's school in Pincar City
before the Shratta burnt it down... ."

If Rat's second recounting of his life was more
accurate than his first, he'd had a comfortable childhood
and loving parents. But his cozy world had been overturned
ten years ago when the Shratta swarmed the royal city,
preaching that any knowledge that couldn't be read in
Avohir's book wasn't knowledge at all. They had no use for
libraries or schools, so they set them ablaze. Rat's father
had been one of many who'd appealed to Tabarna for
protection against the Shratta mobs, and to Tabarna's son,
Catal, who funded the Red-Stripes to protect them. Then
Catal died, poisoned by the Shratta, or so said the Red-
Stripes, who'd avenged his death. The city dissolved into
carnage and riot.

"We tried. Father grew a beard, Mother made jellies and
sold them in the market. I stayed out of trouble-tried to
stay out of trouble. But it wasn't any use. The Shratta
knew our names. They caught my uncle-I called him my uncle,
but he was only a friend, my father's closest friend. They
drew his guts out through a hole in his belly, then they
set fire to his house-after they'd locked his family
inside. Our neighbors came to set our house ablaze, too.
Father said that they were afraid of everything, ready to
believe anything. He said it wasn't their fault, but that
didn't stop the flames. We got away through a hole in the
garden wall."

Xantcha wanted to believe her slave. She'd been to
Pincar City where simple houses, each with a tidy garden,
packed the narrow streets. She could almost see a
frightened family running through moonlight, though Rat
hadn't said whether they'd left by day or night. That
seemed to be Rat's charm, Rat's near-magic. When he took a
deep breath and started talking, everything he said rang
true.

Mishra never stooped to flattery, Kayla Bin-Kroog had
written nearly thirty-four hundred years earlier. He didn't
have to. He had the gift of sincerity, and he was the most
dangerous man I ever met.

"We fled to Avular, where my mother had kin. From
Avular, we went to Gam."