Ratepe had gulped the lump without a heartbeat's hesitation and writhed in agony for two days before he let Urza dissolve it. One artifact poisoning wasn't enough. He'd tried twice more, until Urza-who knew somewhere in the fathomless depths of his being that Ratepe was an ordinary young man and not his brother-refused to brew up another one.

"I don't mind doing the heavy work," Xantcha said. The sphere was moving nicely on its own. She laid her hand on his arm. "I like the company ... the friendship."

Ratepe was more than a friend, though both of them were careful not to put the difference into words. The cottage had only two rooms. Her room had only one bed. The difference had come suddenly. One moment they were each alone, ignoring another rainy night. The next, they were on the bed, sitting near each other, then touching. For warmth, he'd said, and Xantcha had agreed, as if curiosity had never gotten her into trouble before. As if she hadn't known the difference between curiosity and need and been coldly willing to take advantage of it.

It had been awkward at first. Xantcha was, as she'd warned, a Phyrexian newt, a vat-grown creature whose purpose had never been to love another or beget children. But Ratepe was nothing if not persistent in the face of challenge, and the problems, though inconvenient, had been surmounted without artifice or magic. He was satisfied. Xantcha was surprised-astonished beyond all the words in all the languages she knew-to discover that being in love had nothing to do with being born.

Ratepe laced his fingers through hers. "I could do more. You never made good on your threat to make me cook my own food."

"There's only one hearth. I haven't had time to make another."

"That's what I mean." Ratepe tightened his hand. "You do everything. Urza doesn't notice, but I do. You're the one who makes the decisions."

Xantcha laughed. "You don't know Urza very well."

"I wouldn't know him at all if you hadn't decided to bring me here. I wake up in the morning, and for a few moments I think I'm back in Efuan Pincar with my family and that it's all been a dream. I think about telling my little brother, then I look over at you-"

She made an unnecessary adjustment to the sphere's drift, an excuse to reclaim her hand. "Urza's coming back to life, letting go of his obsessions. That's your doing."

Ratepe sighed. "I hadn't noticed."

Ratepe, like Mishra, had a tendency to sulk. Xantcha had reread The Antiquity Wars looking for ways to buoy his spirits. She'd even asked Urza what could put an end to Ratepe-or Mishra's- black, self-defeating moods. Silence, Urza had replied, had always been the best tactic when his

brother sulked. Mishra couldn't bear to be ignored. Be patient, out wait him and his quicksilver temper would find another target.

Xantcha had learned endurance without mastering patience. "For the first time in two and a half centuries, Urza's worktable isn't covered with mountains. He's making artifacts again." Xantcha thumped the box behind her. "New artifacts, not the same gnats. He pays attention when you talk to him. Why do you think we're going up to Efuan Pincar?"

"To appease me? To keep me in my place?"

Xantcha's temper rose. "Don't be ridiculous."

"No? I've done what you wanted. He calls me Mishra and I answer. I listen to the Weakstone and remember things I never lived, that no one should have lived. When you or he says that I'm so much like Mishra ... by Avohir's book, I want to go outside and smash my skull with a rock. It's no compliment to be compared with a cold-blooded murderer, and that's what they both are, Xantcha. That's what they always were. They care more about things than people. But I don't do it, because all I've got to replace everything I've lost is you. You asked me to be Mishra, so I am. All I've asked of Urza is that he care enough to send a few of his precious artifacts for Efuan Pincar."

"He does. He has. We're taking these to Pincar City, aren't we?"

"Admit it, you'd both rather be rooting around in Baszerat or Morvern. You've been down there, what, seven, eight times?"

"Six, and you could have come. The lines are clearer there. Urza recognizes the strategies. It's your war all over again, just smaller."

"Not my war, damn it! If I were going to fight a war it wouldn't be in Baszerat or Morvern!"

Xantcha made the sphere tumble and swerve, but those tricks no longer worked. Ratepe had overcome his fear of the open sky. He kept his balance as easily as she did and knew perfectly well that she wasn't going to let them drop to the ground.

"You're wasting your time. Get rid of the Phyrexians in Baszerat or Morvern, and they'll keep on fighting each other. That's what they do."

"And Efuands are so much better than Baszerati swine and Morvernish sheep, or have I got that backward? Are the Baszerati the swine or the sheep?"

"They're all pig-keepers."

Belatedly, Xantcha clamped her teeth together and said nothing. She should have taken Urza's advice, hard as ignoring Rat was when they couldn't get more than a handspan apart. The sphere came around on two long tacks before he saw fit to speak again.

"Do you think it will work?"

The same question he'd asked as they'd risen up from the cottage, but the whiny edge was gone from his voice. Xantcha risked an honest answer.

"Maybe. The artifacts will work. They'll be our eyes and ears and noses in the walls. We'll find out where the Phyrexians are, and if we know that, maybe we'll be able to figure out what they're up to, what can be done to thwart them."

"We know they're in the Red-Stripes and we know the Red-Stripes are doing the Shratta's dirty work. If there are any Shratta left. I want to get to Pincar City and get you into Avohir's temple. I want to know what kinds of oils you smell there. I want you in the palace, so I'll know what's happened to Tabarna. Has he become another Mishra, a man on the outside, a Phyrexian on the inside? Avohir's mercy-I was so certain Urza would listen when I said, 'Brother, don't let the Phyrexians do to another man what they did to me!' And what was his response? Pebbles! We're going to scatter pebbles then come back, who knows when, and see if any of the pebbles have changed color!" Ratepe took a breath and began speaking in a dead-on imitation of Urza, "That way I will know for certain if my enemy has come to Efuan Pincar... .

"Sometimes I'm not so sure he is Urza. Maybe he was once someone like me, then the Mightstone took over his life. Avohir! If a man's a murderer, what's the use of a conscience? During the war, the real Urza and the real Mishra both made hunter-killers, none of this pebbles-onthe- path, wait-and-see nonsense. They went right after each other."

"Urza doesn't want to repeat his old mistakes." Waste not, want not-she was defending Urza with the very arguments that had infuriated her for millennia. "The situation in Efuan Pincar is different. He's not sure what's going on, so he's being careful."

"And putting all his real efforts into Baszerat and Morvern! Avohir! How many Efuand villages have to burn before they're important?"

"I wouldn't know," Xantcha snarled. "Dominaria's the only world he's ever come back to. Everyplace else, he's just 'walked off and left to its fate. Urza may not be doing what you'd like him to do, but he is doing something. He listens to you, Ratepe. He's never really listened to anyone before. You should be pleased with yourself."

"Not while my people are dying. Urza's got the power, Xantcha, and the obligation to use it."

Xantcha was going to mutter something about men who put ideas first, but resisted the impulse. Prickly silence persisted throughout the afternoon. She brought the sphere down with the sun. Ratepe made an abortive attempt to help set up their camp, but they weren't ready to talk civilly to each other. Xantcha banished him to nearby trees until she got the fire lit.