Planeswalker Read Online Free PDF

leaped from her hands. Mishra's
wisps and filings glowed green.
    The illusion of movement and free will was so seamless
that Xantcha asked, "What did she do?" rather than What did
it do?
    "What do you think? Were your eyes open? Were you
paying attention? Must I move them backward and do it
again?" Urza replied.
    Urza was less tolerant of free will in his companions.
Xantcha marveled that Tawnos never left him, but perhaps,
Urza had been less acid-tongued in his mortal days. "I
don't know." She set the lens on a shelf slung beneath the
table. "It has never been my place to think. Tell me, and I
will stand enlightened."
    Their eyes locked, and for a moment Xantcha stared into
the ancient jewels through which Urza interpreted his life.
Urza could reduce her to memory, but he blinked first.
    "Proof. Proof at last. Ashnod's the one. I always
suspected she was the first the Phyrexians suborned." Urza
seized the lens and thrust it back into Xantcha's hands.
"Now, look at the dragon engine. The Yotians have not begun
to move against the qadir, but see ... see? It has
already awakened. Ashnod cast her spark upon my brother,
and he called to it. It would only respond to him, you
know."
    Xantcha didn't peer through the lens. A blanket of
light had fallen across the worktable, a hungry blanket
that rose into Urza's glowing eyes rather than fell from
them.
    "Mishra! Mishra!" Urza whispered. "If only you could
see me, hear me. I was not there for you then, but I am
here for you now.
    Cast your heart upward and I will open your eyes to the
treachery around you!"
    Xantcha didn't doubt Urza's ability, only his sanity,
especially when he started talking to his gnat-brother.
Urza believed that each moment of time contained every
other moment, and that it was possible to not only recreate
the past but to reach into it and affect it. Someday, as
sure as the sun rose in the east, Urza would talk to the
gnats on his table. He'd tell Mishra all the secrets of his
heart, and Mishra would answer him. None of it would be the
truth, but all of it would be real.
    Xantcha dreaded that coming day. She set the lens down
again and tried to distract Urza with a question. "So, your
side-?"
    Urza focused his eyes uncanny light on her face. "Not
my side! I was not a party to anything that happened that
day! I was ignorant of everything. They lied to me and
deceived me. They knew I would never consent to their
treachery. I would have stopped them. I would have warned
my brother!"
    Xantcha beat a tactical retreat. "Of course. But even
    if you had, the end would not have changed," she said in
her most soothing tone. "If you've got it right, now, then
the warlord's schemes were irrelevant. Through Ashnod, the
Phyrexians had their own treachery-against the qadir and
the warlord, against you and Mishra. None of you were meant
to survive."
    "Yes," Urza said on a caught breath. "Yes! Exactly!
Neither the qadir nor the warlord were supposed to survive.
It was a plot to capture me as they had already captured my
brother. Thus he was willing, but also reluctant, to talk
to me!" He turned back to the table. "I understand,
Brother. I forgive! Be strong, Mishra-I will find a way to
save you as I saved myself."
    Xantcha repressed a shudder. There were inconsistencies
among her copies of The Antiquity Wars but none on the
scale Urza proposed. "Was your brother transformed then, or
still flesh?"
    Urza backed away from the table. His eyes were clouded,
almost normal in appearance. "I will learn that next time,
or the time after that. They have suborned him. See how he
responds to Ashnod. She was their first creature. They must
have known that if we talked privately, I would have sensed
the change in him... .
    I would have set him free. If there was still any part
of him left that could have been freed. Or, I would have
turned my wrath on them from that point forward. They knew
I could not be suborned, Xantcha, because