Planeswalker

CHAPTER 16

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.

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.

Xantcha put a few paces between them. Then, with a steady hand, she plunged the short knife into her flank

where she'd tucked her heart away. Her hand was shaking as she lengthened the incision. Urza tried to stop her. Panic gave her the strength to reach inside.

"My heart," she said, offering him the bloodstained amber. "If you think I'm untrustworthy, if you think I belong to the Ineffable, crush it and I'll die. I swore I'd never betray you. I'd rather die than live knowing that you've abandoned me."

"Xantcha!" Urza reached for the wound, which he could heal with a touch.

She staggered backward. "Take it! If I am what you say I am, I don't want to live. But if you won't kill me, then take me with you."