Xantcha picked up a glowing stone. Its warmth and
subtlety was tangible even through Urza's armor. She picked
up a second glowing heart and found it just as warm, just
as subtle, yet also different. But every dark stone felt as
inert as the first she had touched.
The teacher-priests might not have told the whole
truth, but they'd told enough. There was a vital bond
between Phyrexians and their detached hearts. She hadn't
been a total fool. There was good reason to rescue the
stone she'd carried out of the vats.
And precious little hope of finding it among all the
others.
Tears of frustration rolled down Xantcha's armored
cheeks. They fumed when they landed on the glowing stones
cradled in her lap. Another shudder rocked the Fane. When
it ended, a score of hearts had popped and dimmed. More
Phyrexian deaths to Urza's credit, but imagine what his
dragon engine could do if Urza brought its weapons to bear
where Xantcha sat. Imagine what she could do. The hearts
weren't so hard that she couldn't break them, and if her
tears could make the stones fume, what might her blood do
if she chose to sacrifice herself for vengeance?
She'd been willing to die for much less before Urza
rescued her, but she'd come to the Fane of Flesh because
she wanted to live.
Choices and questions, all of them morbid, paralyzed
Xantcha at the edge of the pit, and then she heard
laughter. She scrambled to her feet, scattering hearts,
crushing them in her frantic clumsiness. There was no one
behind her. The laughter hadn't come from the corridor, it
came from within ... within her mind and within her
heart.
Throwing the hook aside, Xantcha waded in the pit,
sweeping her open hands in front of her, moving toward the
laughter. She found what she was looking for not far below
the surface, neither in the middle nor at the pit's edge.
There was nothing to distinguish it from any other heart
stone-a few scratches, but no more than any other stone
she'd touched, glowing or dark. Yet it was hers; it had to
be hers: Urza's armor absorbed it as it lay in her hand.
Another burst of popping hearts interrupted Xantcha's
reverie. A hundred, perhaps several hundred, Phyrexians had
died since she entered the vault, and the chamber was as
bright as it had been when she entered. Xantcha tried to
calculate how many glowing hearts lay on the surface, how
many more might lay beneath. She gave up after a few
attempts, but not before she'd decided that unless she told
Urza about the heart vault, it would be a very long battle
before he achieved vengeance.
Her heart was too big to swallow, too risky to carry in
her hand. Xantcha tucked it carefully inside her boot
before she headed off.
* * *
Finding her way out of the Fane was harder than finding
Urza. Flames, smoke and sorcery ratcheted through one-
quarter of what passed for the Fourth Sphere sky. While
she'd been looking for her heart, the demons had mounted a
counterattack.
Urza's hulking dragon was surrounded by Phyrexia's
smaller defenders: dragons, wyverns and whatever else had
been summoned from the First Sphere through the very hole
Urza had burnt for himself. As she'd warned him,
individually Phyrexia had nothing that could equal his
devastating tool, but in Phyrexia, individuals weren't
important. For every compleated priest, even for every
scrap-made digger or bearer, there were twenty warriors:
fleshless, obedient, and relentless. The demons aimed the
warriors at Urza's dragon where they died by the score and
occasionally did damage.
The dragon's wings were shredded and useless. Two of
its legs had been disabled; a third burst into melting
flames while Xantcha looked for a path through the
Phyrexian lines. Urza could still defend himself in all
quarters but if-when-he lost a fourth leg, there'd be gaps,
and it wouldn't take imagination to exploit them.
You're lost! Xantcha shouted silently, adding an image
of the vault of hearts, There's a better way! 'Walk away
now! But though Urza could easily extract thoughts from her
mind, she'd never been able to insert her thoughts into
his.
There were hundreds of Phyrexians on the battlefield
and even a few gremlins. All of them were in greater danger
of being trampled by the relentless warriors than they were
from anything in the dragon's arsenal, but their presence,
a thin layer of chaos across the field, was Xantcha's best
hope of getting to Urza.
Relying on Urza's armor to protect her from everything
except her own stupidity, Xantcha dodged fire, lightning
and the distortions of sorcery as she threaded her way
through the Phyrexian circle. Once she came face to back
with a demon. It was dark and asymmetric, with pincers on
one arm and a six-fingered hand on the other, and it had
eyes in several places, including the back of its head.
Nothing like Oix, except for the malice and intelligence in
its shiny red eyes. It studied her from boots to hair and
vat-priest hook. Xantcha was sure it knew she wasn't what
she was pretending to be, and equally sure Urza's armor
wouldn't protect her from its wrath.
Just then a wyvern screamed, and the demon turned away.
A wall of sharp, noxious yellow crystals exploded from
the ground between Xantcha and the demon. She staggered
back and watched the demon uncoil like an angry serpent,
writhing toward the dragon. Urza's armor protected Xantcha
from flames and emptiness and corrosive vapors, too. She
followed the wall of crystals as it extended across
Phyrexia's Fourth Sphere toward Urza and his dragon. If
Urza struck down the wall, Xantcha was meat. If he didn't,
it would claim the fourth leg from his dragon.
But not before she swung up into the leg's scaffolding,
climbing for her life and his.
Xantcha made an easy target, running across the
dragon's back, but nothing attacked. The Phyrexians
overhead didn't recognize her as an enemy, and Urza's
attention was centered on the noxious wall. Xantcha fell
hard when the leg collapsed. Worse, there was blood on her
hands when she hauled herself back up. Either her armor was
weakening, or Urza was.
She swung down between the dragon's shoulders expecting
the worst.
Urza reclined in a wire shrouded couch. Smoke rose from
his charred trousers. The dragon's wounds were reflected on
his body. Bruises, contusions-bleeding contusions-covered
Urza's hands and face.
Xantcha had never seen Urza hurt. She'd assumed he
could be destroyed. She hadn't imagined that he could be
wounded. She stood, confused and useless, for several
moments before she found the courage to touch his shoulder.
"Urza? Urza, it's time to 'walk away from here, if you
can."
No response.
"Urza? Urza, can you hear me? It's me, Xantcha." She
put some strength into her hand. The whole couch rocked a
bit, but there was no response from Urza. He was still in
control of the dragon, still fighting. As mindless as any
of the wyverns, Urza had abandoned sentience and become the
tool. "Listen to me, Urza! Vengeance is slipping away.
You've got to leave now!"
Urza's eyes opened. They were horrible to behold. He
started to say the one word that would have been more
horrible to hear than his eyes were to see, but he didn't
finish: "Yawg- "
The Ineffable. The name that must not be spoken.
Xantcha knew it; they all knew it. It was with them in the
vats. But Urza should not have known it. He'd never gotten
anything out of Xantcha's mind that she had not been
willing to give him, and she'd never have given him that.
Every instinct said run, now, alone. Xantcha resisted.
Urza had rescued her when she'd had no hope. She wouldn't
leave him behind.
Xantcha reached across the couch and took Urza's wrists
as he so often took hers. She steeled her nerves and stared
into his seething eyes. "Now, Urza. We've got to leave now.
"Walk us somewhere safe-to the cave where you took me. And
leave ... leave that name behind."
"Yawg-"
"Xantcha!" she screamed her own name at his face.
His hands grasped hers and her vision went black.
The supplies were stowed, safe against mist, mice, and
anything else the changeable climate of Ohran Ridge might
drop on the cottage. Xantcha had checked them twice during
the interminable night. She'd made herself a pot of tea and
drunk it all. The herbs should have helped her relax, but
they hadn't. Dawn's golden light fell sideways on the bed
where she hadn't slept.
Her door was wide open, inviting shadows. Urza's
wasn't. It wasn't warded with layers of "leave me alone"
sorcery, but it wasn't leaking sound. The sounds had
stopped coming through the wall in the unmeasured hours
after midnight. Ratepe, Xantcha had told herself, had
probably fallen asleep, and Urza rarely made noise when he
was alone. Nothing unusual. Nothing to worry about. So why
had she opened her door? Why had she spent the last of the
night damp and shivering? Hadn't Ratepe demonstrated, if
not an ability to take care of himself, then an inclination
to ignore her advice?
And hadn't Urza welcomed Ratepe more enthusiastically
than she'd dare hope? Whatever had brought silence to the
far side of the wall, it wouldn't have been murder. No
matter how annoying Ratepe got, he'd survive.
Xantcha unwound her blankets. Her joints creaked.
Phyrexia was easier on flesh and bone than the Ohran Ridge.
She broke the ice in her washstand, cleared her head with a
few breathtaking splashes, then went outside and listened
at the door. She'd give them until midday. If Ratepe hadn't
reappeared by then, Xantcha planned to take a chisel to the
cottage's common wall. Before that, she had one more gambit
to try and put her chisel to work on the hardened ashes
underneath her outdoor hearth.
When the fire was just right Xantcha covered it with an
iron grate and covered the grate with a rasher of bacon. A
friendly breeze carried the aromas into the cottage. She
never knew when or if Urza would be in a mood to eat, but
if Ratepe was alive, he'd be out the door before the bacon
burnt.
Right on schedule Ratepe appeared in the doorway. "By
the book! That smells good." He didn't have the cross-
grained look of a man who'd just awakened, and he said
something-Xantcha couldn't hear what-over his shoulder
before closing the door behind him. "I'm starving."
"I see you survived." Xantcha hadn't realized how angry
she was until she heard her own voice. "Here, eat. Starting
tomorrow, you can cook your own." On his own hearth, too.
Xantcha wasn't sharing, at least not until she'd calmed
down.
Ratepe had the sense to approach her cautiously.
"You're angry about last night?"
Xantcha slammed hot, crisp bacon on a wooden platter
and thrust it at him. She didn't know why she was so upset
and didn't want to discuss the matter.
"I guess it got out of hand. When I saw him-Urza. He is
Urza, the Urza, Urza the Artificer. You were right, you
know. Back in Efuan Pincar, I didn't believe you. I thought
maybe you thought he was Urza, but I didn't think he could
be the Urza, the by-the-holy-book Artificer!" Ratepe paused
long enough to inhale a piece of bacon. "I thought I'd been
as scared as I could get before I met you, but that was
before he touched me. Avohir! I swear I'll never be afraid
again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
"There can't be anything scarier." Ratepe shook his
head and shoved another piece into his mouth.
This time he chewed before he swallowed. She was about
to criticize his manners, but he was too fast for her.
"He's Urza. Urza is Urza, the real Urza. And I'm
Mishra. I'm talking to a legend, watching things, hearing
things I can't imagine, because Urza-Urza the Artificer,
straight out of The Antiquity Wars, thinks I'm his brother,
Mishra the Mighty, Mishra the Destroyer, and we're going to
put what's wrong back to rights again."
Another pause. More bacon, more bad manners, but then
he hadn't had manners before. His face was flushed and his
eyes never stopped moving.
"I'm Mishra. Avohir! I'm Mishra.... He tries to trick
me sometimes, says things he doesn't believe, things I
shouldn't believe. I have to watch him close ... watch him
close. Did you see his eyes, Xantcha? Avohir! I think he's
a little touched? But I stay ahead of him, nearly. I have
to. I'm almighty Mishra-"
Xantcha had had enough of Ratepe's babbling. She wasn't
as fast as Urza, but she was fast enough to seize a would-
be Mishra by the neck of his tunic and whirl him against
the nearest post. Damp debris from the thatching rained
down on them both.
"You are not Mishra, you merely pretend to be Mishra.
You are Ratepe, son of Mideah, and the day you forget that
will be the day you die, because he is Urza and you cannot
hope to 'stay ahead of him.' Do you understand?"
When a wide-eyed Ratepe didn't immediately say yes,
Xantcha rattled his spine against the post. His chin bobbed
vigorously. She released his tunic and stepped back. The
greater part of her anger was gone.
"I know who I am, Xantcha," Ratepe insisted, sounding
more like himself, more like the youth Xantcha thought she
knew. "I'm Rat, just Rat. But if I don't forget, just a
little-when he looks at me, Xantcha-when Urza the Artificer
looks at me, if I don't let myself believe I am who he
thinks I am-who you told me to be- then ..." He stared at
the closed door. "When I saw his eyes. I never believed
that part, Xantcha. It's not in The Antiquity Wars.
Kayla wrote about Tawnos coming to tell her about how
he'd seen Urza with the Weakstone and Mightstone embedded
in his skull. She thought it was all lies, nice lies
because Tawnos didn't want her to know the truth. The idea
that the Weakstone or the Might-stone kept Urza alive,
that's not even in Jarsyl. There's only one source for the
stuff about Urza's eyes glowing with all the power of the
sylex: four scraps of parchment bound by mistake at the
back of the T'mill codex. They're supposed to be Tawnos's
deathbed confession. My father said it was pure apocrypha.
But it wasn't! Urza's eyes, they are the Weakstone and the
Mightstone, aren't they? They're what've kept him alive, if
Urza really is alive, if he's not just something the stones
have created."
Waste not, want not, Xantcha hadn't found Mishra the
Destroyer, she'd found Mishra the skeptic and Mishra the
babbling pedant! She shot him a disbelieving look. "Don't
ask me. Last night, you were the one who said that the
Weakstone was singing to you."
Ratepe winced and walked past the bacon without taking
any.
"Two eyes, two stones," Xantcha continued. "I thought
you'd gotten lucky."
"I heard something, not with my ears, but inside my
head." He stopped and faced her, confusion painfully
evident on his face. "I called it singing, 'cause that's
the best word I had. And it came from his left eye." He sat
down on the ash bucket, staring at his feet. "Do you want
to know how I knew which eye was which?"
Measured by his expression, she wouldn't like the
answer but, "Go ahead, enlighten me."
"It told me. It told me what it was and that it had
been waiting for someone who could hear it. When Urza said
Harbin wasn't his son, it was, it was .. ," Ratepe made a
helpless gesture that ended with his fingertips pressed
against his temples. "Not pain, but like the feeling that
comes after pain." He stopped again and closed his eyes
before continuing. "Xantcha, I heard Mishra. Well, not
quite heard him. It was just there, in my mind, from the
stone. I knew what Mishra thought, what he would have said.
Not his words, exactly. My words." His eyes opened. He
stared at Xantcha with only a shadow of his usual
cockiness. "I know who I am, Xantcha.
I'm Ratepe, son of Mideah, or, just Rat now, 'cause I
lost everything when I became a slave. I was born almost
eighteen years ago in the city of Pincar, on the sixth day
after the Festival of Fruits in the sixth year of Tabarna's
reign. I'm me. But, Xantcha, pretending to be Mishra, the
way you asked me to-" He broke the stare. "It's not
pretend. I could get lost. I could wind up thinking I am
Mishra before this is over."
Xantcha bit her lip and sighed. Ratepe wasn't looking,
didn't seem to have heard. "Right now, while you're sitting
there, can you hear the Weakstone singing Mishra's thoughts
in your mind?"
He shook his head. "Only when I'm looking at Urza's
eyes, or when he's looking at me."
She began another sigh, of relief this time, but she
began too soon.
"I'm worried, Xantcha. It's so real, so easy to imagine
him, and that's after just one night. By next year when I'm
supposed to go back to Efuan Pincar ... ? You should've
warned me."
Trust Rat-or Ratepe-or Mishra-or whatever he wanted to
call himself to go for the guilt. "I didn't know about the
singing. I knew about Urza's eyes, where they came from
anyway, and I did warn you about that. But singing and
Mishra? Beyond The Antiquity Wars, I don't know anything
but what Urza's told me, and I guess there's a lot he
didn't."
The rest of Xantcha's anger went with that admission.
She leaned against a porch post, grateful that no one was
looking at her. All those times Urza had glowered at her,
eyes ablaze-had the voice of Mishra's Weakstone tried to
make itself heard in her mind? Why, really, had she gone in
search of a false Mishra? What had drawn her to Ratepe?
She'd known he was the one to fulfill her plans before
she'd gotten a good look at him.
"Can I trust myself?"
Xantcha had no assurances, not for herself or for him.
"I don't know."
Ratepe folded his arms tightly across his ribs and
shrank within himself. Xantcha had spent all her life with
Phyrexians or Urza. She wasn't accustomed to expressive
faces and wasn't prepared for the gust of empathy that blew
from Ratepe to her. She tried to shake it off with a change
of subject and a touch of humor.
"What were the three of you talking about all night?"
Ratepe wasn't interested. "A year from now, will there
be anything left of me? Will I be myself?"
"I'm still me," Xantcha answered.
"Right. We talked, some, about you."
She should have expected that, but hadn't. "I haven't
lied to you, Ratepe, not about the important things. The
Phyrexians are real, and Urza's the only one with the power
to defeat them."
"But Urza's wits are addled, aren't they? And you
thought you'd cure him if you scrounged up someone who'd
remind him of his brother. You thought you could make him
stop living in the past."
"I told you that before we left Medran."
"Are you as old as he is?"
Xantcha found the question surprisingly difficult to
answer. "Younger, a bit... I think. You're not the only one
who doesn't know who or what to trust inside. He told you I
was Phyrexian?"
"Repeatedly. But, since he thinks I'm Mishra, he's not
infallible."
The bacon was burning. Xantcha scraped the charred
rashers onto the platter and made of show of eating one,
swallowing time while she decided how to answer.
"You can believe him." She took a deep breath and
recited-in Phyrexian squeals, squeaks, and chattering, as
best she could remember them-the first lesson she'd learned
from the vat-priests. "Newts you are, and newts you shall
remain. Obey and learn. Pay attention. Make no mistakes."
Ratepe gaped. "That day, in the sphere, when you cut
yourself-If I'd taken the knife from you-"
"I'd bleed no matter where you cut me. It would have
hurt. You could have killed me, you were inside the sphere.
I'm not Urza. I don't think Urza can be killed. I don't
think he's alive, not the way you and I are."
"You and I, Xantcha? No one I know lives for three
thousand years."
"Closer to thirty-four hundred, I think. Urza believes
I was born on another plane and that the Phyrexians stole
me while I was still a child then compleated me the way
they compleated Mishra.
But that can't be true. I don't know what happened to
Mishra, but with newts, we've got to be compleated while
we're still new. Urza's never accepted that I was dragged
out of a vat in the Fane of Flesh."
"So, in addition to everything else, Phyrexians are
immortal?"
"To survive the compleation, newts have to be very
resilient, immortally resilient. But Phyrexians can die,
especially newts, just not of age or anything else that
born-folk might call natural."
"And after thirty-four hundred years, Urza still
doesn't believe you?"
"Urza's mad, Ratepe. What he knows and what he believes
aren't always the same. Most of the time it doesn't make
any difference, as long as he acts to defeat Phyrexia and
stops trying to recreate the past on a tabletop."
Ratepe nodded. "He showed me what he was working on."
"Again?" Xantcha couldn't muster surprise or
indignation, only weariness.
"I guess, if you say so. Funny thing, with the
Weakstone, I get a sense of everything that happened to
Mishra." He fell silent until Xantcha looked at him.
"You're half-right about what happened. Urza's half-right,
too. Phyrexians wanted the Weakstone. When Mishra wouldn't
surrender it, one of them tried to kill him. The Weakstone
kept him alive then and even when they took him apart
later, but it couldn't keep him sane." Ratepe strangled a
laugh. "Maybe burning his own mind was the last sane thing
Mishra did. After that, there're only images, like
paintings on a wall, and waiting, endless waiting, for Urza
to listen."
"And now Mishra, or the Weakstone, or both of them
together have you to speak for them."
"So far, I listen, but I speak for myself."
"What does that mean?"
Ratepe began to pace. He made a fist with his right
hand and pounded it against his left palm. "It means I'd do
anything to have my life back. I wish I'd never seen you. I
wish I was still a slave in Medran. Tucktah and Garve only
had my body. My thoughts were safe. I didn't know the
meaning of powerless until I looked into Urza's eyes. I'm
as dead as he is, as Mishra, as you."