The pain had faded, and numbness returned. Xantcha's
legs were leaden when she stood. She could barely lift her
feet when she tried to walk. "There's got to be another
way."
"We wait until the archangels find us. There is no
other way."
"Is your lady sensitive to black mana, or just the
archangels?"
"Black mana has no place here. It hurts. We can all
feel it, the Lady most of all. She is aware of the whole
realm as you are aware of your body. The archangels patrol
the islands looking for black mana and other evil miasmas.
They eliminate evil before it can affect the Lady, but when
they found you and the other-Urza- together, they called
Lady Serra for a judgment. You've already been judged. When
the archangels find us, they won't call Lady Serra again.
They won't risk her health. None of us would risk it. If
the Lady sickened, we would all die."
Another unfortunate choice of words, given the state of
Xantcha's gut, but she had an idea. "I'm going to get
everyone's attention, the archangels and, with any luck,
your Lady herself."
Xantcha yawned and thought the mnemonic for her armor.
At first there was nothing, and she thought she'd lost the
cyst altogether. Then the pain began and she felt something
acid rising through her throat. Sosinna screamed, but by
then Xantcha couldn't have stopped the process if she'd
wanted to. The armor burned as it flowed over her skin. It
spared her eyes. When Xantcha looked down what she saw was
blacker than the darkest night, as black and featureless as
the walls of an unlit cave. She brought her hands together,
saw them touch, and felt absolutely nothing.
"You got the archangels, that's all." Sosinna pointed
through the narrow opening between the islands. "We're
doomed."
Sosinna stood no more than two arm's lengths away, but
with the black armor covering Xantcha's ears, she sounded
distant and under water. Xantcha looked in the indicated
direction. A dazzling white diamond had appeared in the
ribbon of golden light between the two islands. A moment's
observation revealed that it was growing, moving toward
them at considerable speed. From the air, then, the
floating islands had edges. It was only from the ground
that the horizon never became an edge.
As the diamond grew larger, it became apparent that it
had five parts: four smaller lights, one each in the narrow
and oblique points, and a much larger light in the center.
"The Aegis," Sosinna said.
The Aegis was also diamond shaped and too bright to
look at directly. Xantcha held her black-armored hand in
front of her eyes and squinted through the pinhole gaps
between her fingers. She saw writhing plumes of yellow fire
emerging from a hole that reminded her of a portal, a
portal to the sun. Moving her hand slightly she observed
the smaller lights, the archangels themselves: radiant,
elongated creatures with dazzling wings that didn't move
and smooth, featureless faces. They resembled Sosinna the
same way many compleat Phyrexians resembled newts. Not an
encouraging thought.
Xantcha didn't think Urza's armor, in its present
condition, would be proof against the Aegis. She tried to
say good-bye to Sosinna and discovered the armor had taken
away her voice.
Wind preceded the archangels. It shook boulders loose
from the overhead island and lifted the island itself out
of the way. One loosened boulder struck the ground so near
to Xantcha's feet that she felt the ground shudder. The
wind died when the archangels brought the Aegis to a
hovering halt. As good warriors anywhere, the archangels
tested their weapon before they put it to use. A beam of
light as hot as a Phyrexian furnace and many times as
bright seared the land directly below the Aegis. Then the
beam began to move toward Xantcha and Sosinna.
It made no difference whether Xantcha's eyes were open
or shut. She was blind, and it felt as if the back of her
skull were on fire. Xantcha had never believed in gods or
souls, but facing the end of her life, Xantcha found she
believed in curses. She'd roundly cursed Lady Serra's
notion of perfection when she was struck down by a sideways
wind.
The wind was a word and the word was:
Holt!
A woman's voice. This time there could be no mistaking
it, even through Xantcha's blackened armor. The great Lady
of the realm reined in her archangels. The heat ebbed at
once, but Xantcha remained blind. A more ordinary voice, a
man's voice, shouted, "Sosinna!" Xantcha guessed that
Kenidiern had found his beloved. She hoped Sosinna was
still alive. She'd hoped, too, that Urza might be part of
the rescue party, but no one called her name. Someone did
lift her to her feet and into the air-at least Xantcha
thought that she'd been lifted-she presumed she was being
carried by an angel or archangel. Blind and numb as she
was, it was impossible to be certain, and she was in no way
tempted to release Urza's armor, assuming she could release
it.
The journey lasted long enough for Xantcha's vision to
recover from its Aegis searing. She was moving through the
air of Serra's realm, tucked under the arm of the right
side archangel. Craning her neck as much as she dared,
Xantcha caught a glimpse of a silver face with angles for
nose, chin, and not so much as a slit for vision.
A mask she thought, because the hand she could see at
her waist was flesh with stretched sinew and pulsing
arteries apparent beneath normal-hued skin. Xantcha could
understand why the archangels might choose to cover their
eyes. Even when it was shut down, the Aegis-one golden
tether to which her archangel held in his, hers? its? other
hand-was nothing Xantcha wanted to look at. Easily four
times as high as her archangel, it reminded Xantcha of
nothing so much as a piece of the sun, that Serra's realm
did not otherwise possess.
They left the Aegis behind, shining among the floating
islands, once the great island that could only be Lady
Serra's palace came into view.
The palace was many times the size of any other island
Xantcha had seen, and if she'd had to make a guess, she'd
have said that it was the very center of the lady's
creation.
As all Phyrexia had formed in spheres around the
Ineffable?
But Xantcha had seen nothing like the palace in
Phyrexia.
Lady Serra's home leaped and soared in fantastic
curves. Xantcha could think of no stone or brick that would
glisten as the palace walls and ribs glistened in the
Aegis's light. The underlying color was white, or possibly
a golden gray. It was difficult to be certain. A myriad of
rainbows moved constantly along every arch and into every
corner. There was sound in all timbres to accompany the
kaleidoscopic light, and not an echo of discord.
The total experience, which could have been as
overwhelming as the Aegis, was instead subtle and
unspeakably beautiful. It was also pushing Xantcha and her
archangel away. They were falling behind the others,
including the fifth, unmasked angel carrying Sosinna.
Xantcha would have preferred to keep her armor, black as it
was, around her but she didn't want to be left alone
either. Perhaps releasing the armor would be the most
foolish thing she'd ever done, and the last, but she
recited the mnemonic that made it melt away.
Black dust streamed away from her. It dirtied the
archangel's pure white robes, but he regained his right
side place in the formation moments before they began a
dizzying ascent to the rainbow lace ornament atop the
palace's highest, most improbable arch.
With nothing else to guide her eye, Xantcha had
misjudged the scale of Serra's palace. She'd seen snow-
capped mountains that weren't as high as that single,
soaring arch, and mighty temples that were smaller than the
deceptively delicate edifice on whose jeweled porch the
archangel landed.
Her knees buckled when her feet touched the ground. She
was numb the same way the palace was many-colored: awash in
shifting waves of sensation. She kept her balance by
keeping a close watch on her feet and the floor.
"Follow me."
Xantcha looked up quickly, a mistake under the
circumstances. The archangels had already vanished, and
Kenidiern, assuming the unmasked angel was Kenidiern, had
no hands to spare. Xantcha broke her fall with her arms and
stayed where she was, crouched on the glass-smooth floor.
"I can send someone out for you," Kenidiern said in a
tone that clearly conveyed the notion that he wouldn't
recommend accepting the offer.
He had a friendly, honest voice. Xantcha had never paid
much attention to the handsomeness of men, but even she
could see that Kenidiern was, as Sosinna had claimed, a
very attractive paragon. She guessed he knew how to laugh,
although his face was anxious at that moment. If Sosinna
wasn't dead, she was clinging to life by a very delicate
thread. The Aegis had burned the tall woman badly. Her
flesh was seared and weeping beneath its crust of dirt.
"Go," Xantcha told him. "I'll follow." She started to
stand and abandoned the attempt. "I'll find a way."
Xantcha watched Kenidiern carry Sosinna through one of
the many open doorways, and made sure she'd remembered
which one before rising to her feet. Speed, she decided,
mattered. The palace didn't like her and especially didn't
like her when she moved quickly. Slow, gliding movements,
as if she were crossing a frozen pond, offended it least.
She made steady progress from the porch through the door
and down a majestic corridor. There was no one to stop or
question her, at least no one that Xantcha could see, which
was not to say that she didn't believe her every step was
scrutinized.
The corridor ended in a chamber of breathtaking beauty.
Unlike the rest of the palace, which seemed to be made from
crystal and stone, this inner chamber was a place of life
and growth. A maze of columns that might be trees, all
graceful, but asymmetric and entrancing, hid the walls.
Each tree or column was taller than her eye could measure.
Xantcha lost her thoughts in the overhead tangle of
green-gold branches, and the music, which was no longer the
austere interplay of wind and light, but the more playful
sounds of water and the bright-feathered birds she glimpsed
among the high branches. She was startled witless when
someone grabbed her from behind.
"Xantcha! I did not know you still lived!"
"Urza!"
They'd never been much for backslapping embraces or
other shows of affection, but any tradition needed its
exception. And Urza was more animated, more alive, than
Xantcha could remember him. His hands were warm and supple
on her shoulders. They banished the lethargy that had
plagued her since she'd first awakened and ended the
numbness in her gut around the cyst.
"Let me look at you!" he said, straightening his arms.
His eyes glittered but only with reflections from Serra's
palace. "A bit worn and dirty at the edges-" Urza winked as
he tightened his fingers-"but still the same Xantcha."
There was the faintest hint of a question in his
statement. The sense that they were being watched hadn't
faded with the numbness and lethargy. If anything, Xantcha
was more aware than ever that she was in strange, perhaps
hostile, surroundings.
"As stubborn and suspicious as ever," Xantcha replied
with a wink of her own.
"We will talk, child. There is much to talk about. But,
first you must meet our host." His arm urged her to walk
beside him.
"I did once, already." Xantcha slipped free and into
one of the many, many other languages they both knew. If
they were back to child, then she was going to be very
stubborn and twice as suspicious. Lowering her voice, she
added, "Serra sent me away to die, Urza, and sent one of
her own to die with me. That's why you didn't know I was
alive."
"We will talk, child," Urza repeated in Serra's
language. "This is not a good time to have a tantrum."
She switched to another language. "I'm not a child, I'm
not having a tantrum, and you know it!"
Urza could put thoughts into Xantcha's head with only a
little more discomfort than when he removed them. Yes, I
know, and I will ask Serra why she misled me. I'm sure the
answer will amuse us both. But for now you are safe with
me, and it will be better all around if you behave
graciously.
Xantcha replied with a thought of her own. Graciously
be damned! Serra didn't mislead you ... she lied!
But Xantcha couldn't put a thought in Urza's mind, and
her indignation went unshared. Urza walked away, and faced
with a choice between keeping up with him or staying by
herself, she caught up, as he'd almost certainly known she
would.
He said the chamber was known as Serra's Aviary and
that she had seldom left it since creating her floating
island realm.
"Then you know this isn't a natural world?" Xantcha
asked, still refusing to speak Serra's language.
"Yes," Urza replied, ignoring her choice of language.
"Does it remind you of my home as much as it reminds
me?" She was careful not to speak the word Phyrexia.
"There are no abominations here. The angels' wings are
no more a part of them than your cyst is part of you.
Serra's realm is slow and not without its flaws, but it is
a living, natural place."
"For you. I haven't eaten since I got here. That's not
natural for me."
"She has paid a price for her creation. Now, be
gracious."
Urza took Xantcha's hand as they wound around another
organic column. A narrow spiral stairway opened in front of
them. Xantcha looked up and up and up.
"There's another way-?"
"We are guests."
Urza began climbing. Xantcha fell in behind him and
into a kind of trance. The spiral was a tight one and each
step a bit different in height and width than its
neighbors. An odd sort of perfection that made each one
unique, Xantcha thought, when she dared to think. Each step
required concentration lest she lose her balance and tumble
to the floor, which through the tangle of branches around
them had come to look like twinkling stars on a warm, humid
night. Urza surged ahead of her, but a hand awaited at the
top of the stairway.
Not Urza. Kenidiern. She recognized him by his stained
robe.
"She asked me to wait until you were here."
Xantcha was breathing hard, but Urza's embrace had
revitalized her. She didn't need anyone's help to follow
the angel along a suspended walkway to a somewhat more
intimate chamber than any she'd yet seen in the palace. It
was only ten or twenty times the size that a room needed to
be. Urza was there already, talking with a woman who could
only be the lady, Serra, herself.
Having seen angels, archangels and Sosinna, Xantcha had
expected a tall, slender and remote woman, but Serra could
have walked through any man-made village without attracting
a second glance. Her face, though pleasant, was plain, and
she had the sturdy silhouette of a woman who'd borne
children and done many a hard day's work. She was also one
of two light sources in the chamber, surrounded by a gently
flickering white nimbus. If she'd created this realm, as
Urza said, then, like him, she could change her appearance
to suit her whims.
The chamber's other light source was incomprehensible
at first glance: a jumble of golden light and angular
crystals bound together into two overlapping spheres. An
artifact, certainly- Xantcha's dodger instincts had never
deserted her-and beautiful, but its purpose, except as a
source of light, eluded her.
"Please." Kenidiern offered his hand again. "She is
very weak, and she must be alive when the cocoon is closed
or there is no reason to close it."
Be gracious, Urza had said, so Xantcha let the angel
have her hand, and before she could object he'd swept her
up in both arms and carried her into the crystal lights.
The wingless sisters of Serra were, perhaps, accustomed to
being swooped about the palace, but Xantcha had rarely felt
as helpless or as grateful to have her own feet under her
once they'd reached a tiny enclosure where the spheres met.
Cocoon, Kenidiern called it, and that was as good a
word as any for the vaguely egg-shaped compartment in which
Sosinna lay. Her stained gown was gone, replaced by a
shining quilt, but the Aegis had seared her face and hair.
Her eyes were terrible, frightened and frightening. Sosinna
was blind. At least, Xantcha hoped Sosinna was blind.
"Xantcha?" Sosinna's voice was a pain-wracked whisper.
Her breathing was shallow and liquid.
Xantcha had seen worse, done worse, though few things
in her life had been more difficult than reaching out to
touch the quilt-bandaged lump that was, or had been,
Sosinna's hand.
"I'm here."
"We made it. You were right."
"Difficult, but right."
Sosinna tried to smile, pain defeated her. "We will
name our child for you."
Be gracious, that was easy. "I'm honored." Optimism
came harder. "I'll show her, or him, how to be difficult."
Another failed smile on Sosinna's swollen lips and an
agonizing attempt to shake her head. "You will go outside
where you belong. Kenidiern and I will remember you."
With the sound of his name, Kenidiern came closer. His
wings were soft, plumes rather than feathers. He rested his
hand on Xantcha's shoulders. A shiver ran down Xantcha's
spine, reminding her that, unlike Serra, the Ineffable had
decreed that Phyrex-ians would not be born, and she was
neither a man nor woman. Xantcha couldn't know if Kenidiern
were a true paragon of anything useful, but she believed he
had been looking for his beloved, and she envied Sosinna as
she had never envied anyone before.
"We must close the cocoon," Kenidiern whispered, urging
her to retreat.
Better call it a coffin. Some hurts were beyond even
Urza's healing talents, and Sosinna's would be among them.
It wasn't just her skin that had been charred and
blistered. Sosinna had breathed fire and her insides were
burnt as well. Xantcha took a backward step.
"Good-bye ... friend." Sosinna whispered.
"Good-bye, friend."
The upper sphere had begun to descend. Sosinna might be
blind, but the cocoon wasn't silent. Surely she knew it was
closing around her. She met her end without a whimper.
"Until you rise again," Kenidiern added, a euphemism,
if ever Xantcha had heard one, though Sosinna managed a
trembling smile just before the spheres blocked Xantcha's
view.
There was a click, the golden light intensified, and,
through her feet, Xantcha felt the whir of a distant
engine. She thought of the Fane of Flesh, of the vats where
discarded flesh was rendered and newts were decanted.
"You didn't say good-bye," she said to Kenidiern.
"Sosinna will rise again. The Lady does not offer her
cocoon to everyone, but when she does, it never fails."
He swept Xantcha up again before she could protest and
brought her down to Urza and Serra, whose conversation died
as they approached.
"Sosinna is a special child to me," Serra said before
Xantcha's feet were on the floor. "I didn't know what had
become of her. I'm grateful that you showed us where she
was, even though I'm not grateful for your methods!"
The lady had Urza's voice, the voice of someone who
treated everyone as children, someone whom mortals might
mistake for a god. Xantcha had never been mortal, never
believed in gods, and she'd used up all her graciousness.
"Sosinna didn't believe in mistakes, she never lost
faith in you. All the time we were together on that
forsaken, floating island, she was hoping you or Kenidiern
would rescue her before the archangels came to kill her. If
that was you who called the Aegis off, then when it comes
to rescuing your special children, you cut very close to
the edge." Urza was appalled. His eyes glowed dark.
Kenidiern stared at his sandaled feet. "Things here aren't
as perfect as she believed they were."
"You are Phyrexian, are you not?" Serra asked, a tone
short of accusation.
Urza's displeasure rumbled through the empty part of
Xantcha's mind. The important part, the part she'd kept for
herself since Gix had taught her how to build mental walls,
remained unbowed. "You know I am."
"Your leave, my lady," Kenidiern interrupted. "My love
is in your hands now. There is no need for me to stay."
Serra dipped her chin. Kenidiern was in the air before
she raised it again. There were only three of them left in
the branch-framed chamber: a man and a woman with the
powers of gods, and a Phyrexian newt. Well, Xantcha was
used to being overmatched.
"There is no need for this, Xantcha." Urza attempted to
impose peace. "I think Lady Serra will concede there have
been certain imperfections in our condition here." He
turned toward Serra.
"Your arrival was so unexpected-" Serra began.
Xantcha cut her off. "That reminds me. How did we get
here? The last thing I remember was beating on the shell of
a Phyrexian turtle."
"I destroyed that abomination and all the others," Urza
answered quickly. "But my enemies were lurking, watching
from nether places, and before I could escape, they sent
through reinforcements. It threatened to become the Fourth
Sphere battle all over again, so I decided to retreat. I
'walked away, grabbing you as I left. But you were badly
injured, and my grasp was not firm. I sensed the chasm to
Phyrexia, of course-it is always there-but I sensed
another, too, and threw myself across it. It was a terrible
passage, Xantcha. I lost you. I would not have survived
myself if Lady Serra had not found me and put me inside
that cocoon you just saw.
"Such a marvelous artifact! If there is life, any life
at all, the cocoon will sustain it and nurture it until the
whole is healed. I am well again, Xantcha, well and whole
as I have not been since I left Phyrexia, since before
Phyrexia .. . since I met you. The principle is ingenious.
To make her plane, Serra has treated time itself as a
liquid, as a stream where water flows at different
speed...."
Xantcha swallowed hard. It didn't help. She stopped
listening to Urza ramble about the wonders of Serra's
cocoon. His recounting of events was laced through with
simplifications that were no better than lies: so I decided
to retreat and I 'walked away didn't accurately describe
what she remembered of Urza's Phyrexian invasion and was
probably no better at describing how the skirmish with the
turtle-avengers ended or how they'd come to Serra's realm,
but Urza remembered what he wanted to remember and forgot
the rest.
He had rescued her from the turtles. Never mind asking
if he'd cared about anything beyond keeping her away from
Phyrexian scrutiny. His grasp might not have been firm. He
might have lost her by accident. And he had been ill ...
since Phyrexia, but not before.