Lynn Abbey - Planeswalker

Twelve winters, twelve summers, and Urza still spoke to her as if she couldn't think for herself or hear through his lies. She swore she'd do as he asked. Whatever his reasons were, Xantcha didn't want to come face-to-face with anything Phyrexian, even though she suspected Urza wouldn't come back for her after he dealt with Phyrexia.

Urza's demands weren't a burden. The chaos and subtleties of born-folk societies fascinated her. Giving herself to the world's wind, Xantcha explored whatever struck her curiosity, so long as it didn't reek of Phyrexia's glistening oil. She learned to speak the born- folk languages, to read their writing, when it existed. The warrior-cave had a hundred different names, all of them archaic, all of them curses. In the world's larger towns, where more folk knew their history, she discovered it was better to invent a completely false history for herself than to admit she had roots near the warrior-cave.

After a few narrow escapes and near disasters, Xantcha decided that it was better to disguise herself as well. Born-folk had definite notion about the proper places of young men and women in their societies, and no place at all for a newt who was neither. An incorrigible lad, a rogue in

the making, was an easier disguise than a young woman. At best when she wore a young woman's clothes, good- intentioned folk wanted to swallow her into their families. At worst... at worst, she'd been lucky to escape with her life. But Xantcha did escape and, hardened by Phyrexia, there was nothing in a born-folks' world that daunted her for long.

The forest world had one moon, which went from full to new to full again in thirty-six days. The born-folk marked time by their moon's phases, and Xantcha did, too, returning to the cave twice each month. Sometimes there was a message from Urza in the ruins of the neglected cottage. Sometimes he was there himself, waiting for her, eager to whisk her between-worlds to witness his latest accomplishment or discovery.

Urza had no one else. Although he said there were others who could walk between planes, he avoided them and bom-folk alike.

Without Xantcha, there were only ghosts to break his silence. If anything would lure Urza back to her after Phyrexia, Xantcha expected it would be loneliness.

She pitied Urza; it seemed he'd lost more to his nightmares than he believed she'd lost to the Phyrexians. His artifact pendant was her most precious possession, a constant reminder that never left her neck. Yet, she was always a little relieved when she found the forest deserted, and except for one nagging worry, she would not have mourned the loss if Urza never reappeared in her life.

The worry was her heart, the lump Xantcha had held in her hand when the vat-priests decanted her, the lump they'd taken from her moments later, as they took it from every other newt. It had slipped through her memory sometime after she'd become a dodger, but it resurfaced when she encountered the Trien.

The Trien believed that their hearts could hold only so many misdeeds before they burst and consigned them to hell. To defend against eternal torment, the Trien purged their hearts of error through bloodletting and guilt dances. Urza had no more blood within him than a compleated Phyrexian, but she'd thought the guilt dance might defeat his nightmares, so she danced with the Trien-to test her theory-and in the midst of hysteria and ecstasy she'd remembered her own heart.

Xantcha tried to convince herself that the tale the vat-priests had told her was merely another of their countless lies. Her heart hadn't been very big, and no matter who might have done the counting, her or the Ineffable, she'd made a lot of mistakes that hadn't killed her. But Xantcha had never been particularly persuasive, not with Urza nor with herself. For the first time Xantcha's dreams were filled with her own ghosts: newts and priests, a plundered wind-crystal of music and beauty, insect warriors with baleful eyes, and even Gix as the other demons shoved him through the Fourth Sphere fumarole.

Worse than dreams, Xantcha began to worry what would happen if Urza succeeded, and all Phyrexia, including the heart vault beneath the Fane of Flesh, were destroyed.

She conquered her nightmares and worries; obsession wasn't part of her nature. Still, when the time came, after nearly two hundred summers of waiting, that Xantcha found

diggers, bearers, and a handful of gremlin dodgers in the forest cave, she didn't retreat before breaking Urza's crystal artifact.

Urza arrived with his dragon less than a day later and caught the Phyrexians by surprise. From her bolt-hole in the hill above the warriors' cave, Xantcha heard the gremlins screaming and counted the flashes as the diggers and bearers exploded.

A handful of diggers made a stand in front of the cave. Urza toyed with them, tossing each again and again before crushing it. It was a display worthy of Phyrexia in its cruelty and single-minded arrogance. Xantcha couldn't watch. She looked away and saw, to her horror, a searcher- priest not ten paces away. She thought it was hiding, though it was difficult to imagine any com-pleat Phyrexian seeking shelter among living trees and animals.

Then insight struck. The searcher was fulfilling its destiny, watching an artifact Phyrexia would surely covet. Xantcha couldn't guess whether the priest had seen her before she saw it, but a moment later it began to run toward the ambulator, which it could-if it had the time and thought quickly enough-unan-chor and suck to Phyrexia behind it.

Xantcha had no means to tell Urza that he was in danger of losing his way to Phyrexia and no reason to think she could stop the searcher-priest or even that she could catch it before it reached the ambulator, but if it paused to unanchor the nether end, she hoped she could delay it until Urza arrived. After a mnemonic yawn, she abandoned her bolt-hole.

The searcher-priest had no intention of unanchoring the ambulator's nether end or even slowing down. It had a score of strides on Xantcha when its brass foot touched the black circle. With its second step, it crossed the midpoint and sank between-worlds. Too fast. Too fast, memory warned from the back of Xantcha's mind; the priests had told them to enter the ambulators slowly, lest they get caught between two worlds.

Expecting an explosion, Xantcha skidded off the trail and hid behind the largest tree she saw. There was no explosion, but when she poked her head around the tree trunk fire rippled across the ambulator disk's surface. She had no idea if the priest had survived. For that matter, Xantcha didn't know if the ambulator had survived. Urza wouldn't welcome the sight of her, not when he'd told her to stay far away, but Xantcha thought it best to warn him. She stepped in front of the dragon when it burnt a path through the trees. Urza shot flame to the left of her and flame to the right. Xantcha ran until she was breathless, then circled back. The dragon sat beside the ambulator; the saddle-seat between its shoulders was empty.

Urza had gone to Phyrexia alone.

Xantcha settled down to wait. Morning became afternoon. The sky darkened, and the dragon's eyes shone red.

Urza returned, not through the ambulator but in a blaze of lightning, and Xantcha did nothing to attract his attention as he remounted the dragon. Moments later they

were gone.

The storm ended quickly. The ambulator beckoned. It wasn't broken. For the last time, Xantcha asked herself:

Was her heart important enough to risk everything to rescue it? The priests lied about so many things; only a fool could believe they hadn't lied about newt hearts. Try as she might, Xantcha couldn't remember exactly what hers had looked like; mottled amber, perhaps, with bright rainbow inclusions. She'd only seen it that once and never seen another. Only a fool. .. And she was a fool.