Xantcha continued walking, one step, another ...
misery stopped her before she took a third. Looking back
over her shoulder, she caught the eyes of a slave who
stared at her as if his condition were indeed her
responsibility. Though they were at least a hundred paces
apart, Xantcha saw that the slave was a dark-haired young
man.
I asked my husband's brother how he'd come to lead the
Fallaji horde, Kayla had written in The Antiquity Wars.
Mishra replied that he was their slave, not their leader.
He laughed and added that I, too, was a slave to my people,
but his eyes were haunted as he laughed, and there were
scars around his wrists.
In all the times Xantcha had read that passage, she'd
followed Una's lead and blamed Phyrexia for Mishra's scars
and bitterness. But the Fallaji had been a slave-keeping
folk, and looking across the Medran plaza, Xantcha suddenly
believed that Mishra had told Kayla a simple, unvarnished
truth.
Xantcha believed as well that she'd found her Mishra.
With Urza's armor still around her, she strode over to the
tavern.
"Are they spoken for?" she asked the only unchained man
she saw, a balding man with a eunuch's unfinished face.
He wasn't in charge, but after a bow he scurried into
the tavern to fetch his master, who proved to be a giant of
a woman, garbed, like Xantcha, in men's clothing, though in
the slave master's case, the effect was intimidation rather
than disguise.
"They're bound for Almaaz," the slave master said. Her
breath was thick with beer, but she wasn't nearly drunk.
"You know it's against the law to sell flesh here."
By her posture, the slaver was right about the law and
ripe for negotiation.
"I have Morvern gold," Xantcha said, which was true
enough; money was never a problem for a planeswalker or his
companion.
The slave master hawked and spat. "Mug's getting warm."
Xantcha thought fast. "For ransom, then. I recognize a
distant cousin in your coffle. You've kept him safe, no
doubt. I'll pay you for your trouble and take him off your
hands."
"Him!" The slaver laughed until she belched.
There were women in the slave string, and Xantcha was
disguised as a young and presumably curious man.
"A cousin," Xantcha repeated, showing more anxiety than
she felt. Let the slaver laugh and think what she wanted.
Xantcha had the other woman's attention, and she'd have the
slave, too. "For ransom." She unslung her purse and fished
out a gold coin as big as her nose.
"Five of those," the slaver said, smashing her open
hand between Xantcha's shoulder blades. "For ransom!"
If she were truly in the market for a slave, Xantcha
would have protested that no one was worth five golden
nari, but she'd been prepared to split twelve of the heavy
Morvern coins between a likely youth and his family. She
dug out another four and handed them over to the slaver,
who bit each one. Xantcha knew the coins were true but was
relieved when they passed the slaver's test.
"Which one's your cousin?"
Xantcha pointed to the dark-haired youth, who didn't
blink under scrutiny. The slaver, whose eyebrows remained
resolutely skeptical, shook her head.
"Pick another relative, boy. That one will eat you
alive."
"Blood's blood," Xantcha insisted, "and ours is the
same. I won't leave with another."
"Garve!" the slaver shouted the eunuch to her side. She
held out her hand, and Garve surrendered a slender black
rod. The slaver took it and turned back to Xantcha.
"Another nari. You're going to need this."
Would ancient Ashnod be pleased by the all the
improvements Dominarian slavers and torturers had brought
to her pain-inflicting artifacts in the centuries since her
death? Xantcha bought the thing, if only to keep the slaver
or Garve from ever using it again.
"Cut him out," the slaver told Garve and added, while
Garve walked among the slaves, "Have fun, boy."
"I intend to," Xantcha assured her, then watched as
Garve seized the leather band around the youth's neck and
jerked him roughly to his feet.
Garve gave the band a vicious twist, so it choked the
youth and kept him quiet while the eunuch snapped the
rivets that bound
Xantcha's new slave to the others. The youth's face
became red. His eyes rolled.
"I want him alive," Xantcha warned in a low voice, that
promised her threats were as good as her gold.
Her new slave dropped to one knee when Garve suddenly
released him. Hacking spittle, he got himself upright
before the eunuch touched him again. Riveted leather
manacles bound his wrists close behind his back; he
couldn't clean his lightly bearded chin. A short iron chain
ran between his ankles. He could walk, barely, but not run.
As he came closer, watching his feet, Xantcha counted the
sores and bruises she hadn't noticed while he was staring.
Xantcha hadn't been comfortable owning a horse; she
didn't know what she'd do with a slave. The thought of
grabbing the arm's length of leather hanging from the band
around his neck repelled her, though that was what
everyone, including the youth, expected her to do.
"You're too tall," she said at last, though he wasn't
as tall as Urza. She hoped that wasn't going to be a
problem further along in her plan. "You'll walk beside me
until I can arrange something more... ." Xantcha paused.
Phyrexians might not have imagination, but born-folk
certainly did, and there was nothing like silence to
inspire the use of it. "Something more appropriate."
She smiled broadly, and her slave walked politely
beside her, his chain clanking on the plaza's cobblestones.
Xantcha's thoughts were focused on the how she'd get them
both out of Median without attracting trouble from the Red-
Stripes. She wasn't expecting any other sort of trouble
until the youth staggered against her.
Muttering curses no Efuand had ever heard before,
Xantcha got an arm around his waist and shoved him upright.
It wasn't a hard shove, but he groaned and made no attempt
to start walking again. Sick sweat bloomed on his face.
He'd burned through his bravery.
"Do you see that curb beside the fountain?"
A slight nod and a catch in his muscles; he was dizzy
and on the verge of fainting.
"Get that far and you can sit, rest, drink some water."
"Water," he repeated, a hoarse, painful-sounding
whisper.
Xantcha hoped his problems weren't serious. If Garve
had damaged him, Garve wouldn't live to see the sun set.
Her slave shoved one foot forward; she helped him with his
balance. In five steps, Xantcha learned to hate that
treacherous chain between his ankles. He fell one stride
short of the fountain curb. Xantcha looked the other way
while he dragged himself onto it. Then she drew a knife
from the seam of her boot.
The blade was tempered steel from another world, and it
made fast work of the wrist manacles. Xantcha gasped when
she saw rings of weeping sores. Without a second thought
she hurled the slashed leather across the cobblestones. Her
slave was already washing his face and slurping water from
the fountain. Xantcha thought it was a good sign, but
wasn't surprised when her next question, "Are you hungry?"
won her nothing more than another cold, piercing stare.
She retrieved a loaf of black bread, tore off a chunk,
and offered it to him. He reached past her offering toward
the loaf in her other hand.
"You're bold for a slave."
"You're small for a master," he countered and closed
his hand over the bread he wanted.
Xantcha dropped the smaller piece and seized his arm.
She didn't like the feel of open sores beneath her fingers,
and she had every intention of giving him the whole loaf
eventually, but points had to be made. She tightened her
grip. Appearances, her still nameless slave needed to
learn, could be deceiving. In Phyrexia, newts were soft,
useless creatures, but on most other worlds, Xantcha was as
strong as a well-muscled man half again her size. With a
groan, the slave let go of the larger portion, and when
she'd released him, picked up the smaller portion from the
ground.
"Slowly," Xantcha chided him, though she knew it would
be impossible for him to obey. "Swallow, breathe, take a
sip of water."
His hand shot out, while Xantcha wondered what she
should do next. He captured the unguarded bread and held it
tight. Only his eyes moved from Xantcha's face to the black
prod she'd tucked through her belt.
"Ask first," she suggested but made no move for her
belt.
Even if, by some miracle of carelessness, he stole the
prod and struck her with it, Urza's armor would protect
her.
"Master, may I eat?"
For a man still short of his final growth, Xantcha's
slave had a mature grasp of sarcasm. He definitely had
Mishra's attitude in addition to Mishra's appearance.
"I didn't buy you to starve you."
"Why did you, then?" he asked through a mouthful of
bread.
"I have need of a man like you."
He gave Xantcha the same look the slaver and Garve had
given her, and she began to think she'd gotten herself into
the position of a fisherman who'd hooked a fish larger than
his boat. Only time would tell if she'd bring him aboard or
he'd drown her.
"Your name will be Mishra. You will answer to it when
you hear it."
Mishra laughed, a short, snorting sound. "Oh, yes,
Master Urza."
Despite what she'd told Urza, the details of Kayla BinKroog's
Antiquity Wars weren't that widely spread across
what remained of Terisiare. Xantcha hadn't expected her
slave to recognize his new name; nor was she prepared for
his aggressive insolence. I've made a mistake, she told
herself. I've done a terrible thing. Then Mishra started
choking. He tugged on the tight leather band around his
throat and managed to gulp down his mouthful of bread. His
fingers came away stained with blood and pus.
Xantcha looked at her own feet. She might have made a
mistake, but she hadn't done anything terrible.
"You may call me Xantcha. And when you meet him, Urza
is just Urza. He would not like to be called Master,
especially not by his brother."
"Xantcha? What kind of name is that? If I'm Mishra and
you work for Urza, shouldn't your name be Tawnos? You're a
little bit small for the part. Grow out your hair and you
could play Kayla-an ugly Kayla. By the love of Avohir, I
was better off with Tuck-tah and Garve."
"You know The Antiquity Wars?"
"Surprised? I can read and write, too, and count
without using my fingers." He held up his hand but saw
something-the stains, perhaps, that she'd already noticed-
that cracked his insolence. "I wasn't born a slave," he
concluded softly, staring across the plaza at his memories.
"I had a life ... a name."
"What name?"
"Rat."
"What?" she thought she'd misunderstood.
"Rat. Short for Ratepe. I grew into it." Another
snorted laugh-or maybe a strangled sob. Either way, it
ended when the neck leather brought on another choking
spell.
"Hold still," Xantcha told him and drew out her knife
again. "I don't want to cut you."
There wasn't even a flicker of trust in Rat's eyes as
she laid the blade against his neck. He winced as she slid
it beneath the leather. She had to saw through the sweat-
hardened leather and pricked his skin a handful of times
before she was done. The tip was bloody when it emerged on
the other side, but he didn't make a grab for her or the
weapon.
"I'm sorry," she said when she was finished.
Xantcha raised her arm to hurl the collar away as she'd
hurled the manacles. Rat caught the trailing leash. The
leather fell into his lap.
"I'll keep it."
Xantcha knew that in the usual order of such things,
slaves didn't have personal property, but she wasn't about
to take the filthy collar away from him. "I have a task for
you," she said as he worried the collar between his hands.
"I would have offered you the gold, if you'd been free. You
will be free, I swear it, when you've done what I need you
to do."
"And if I don't?"
While Xantcha wrestled with an answer for that
question, a noisy claque of Red-Stripes entered the plaza
from the east, the direction through which Xantcha had
hoped to leave. She and
Rat were far from alone on the cobblestones, and she
reasonably hoped that despite their mismatched appearance-
him in rags and weeping sores, her with her boots and
sword-they wouldn't draw too much attention. Rat saw the
Red-Stripes as well. He snapped the leather against his
thigh like a whip.
Red-Stripes, Xantcha guessed, had something to do with
his transformation from free to slave. Considering his
apparent education and remembering the farmer's gesture,
she wondered if he'd once worn the sort of garments she was
wearing.
"Hold it in," she advised him. "You've got a chain...."
She left the thought incomplete as a gentle breeze brought
her the last scent she ever wanted to smell: glistening
oil.
One of the Red-Stripes was a sleeper, a newt like her,
but different, too. Newts of this new invasion had born-
folk ways and didn't clump together in cadres. In truth,
they didn't seem to know they were Phyrexian. Xantcha
didn't care to test her theory. She hunched on her knees as
she sat, catching her breath in her hands, hiding the
exhalations that might reveal her glistening scent. She
couldn't relax or be too careful.
Beside Xantcha, Rat beat a counterpoint of curses and
leather. There was a chance that the Red-Stripe sleeper
could hear every word.
"Quiet!" Xantcha hissed a command as she clamped her
hand over Rat's. "Quiet!" She squeezed until she felt the
sores and sinews pop.
"Afraid of the Red-Stripes?"
She took a deep breath and admitted, "They're not my
friends. Quiet!"