Lynn Abbey - Planeswalker

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."