Planeswalker

If her own life hadn't hung in the balance, Xantcha would have laughed at the absurdity. She grabbed Sosi

"You want to live, Sosi

A blink. A frown. Nothing.

"This is not perfection!" Xantcha shouted and then let Sosi

The taller woman balanced on her own feet a moment, then calmly sat down again. Xantcha walked away in disgust. She'd gone about ten paces before the light of understanding brightened in her mind.

"You knew!" Xantcha shouted as she ran back. "You've known from the begi

Lady sent me here to be killed and sent you as what? A witness? 'Come back to the floating palace when everything's taken care of.'? All this time, waiting for the archangels-"

"I never wanted them to come!" Sosi

It was the first time Xantcha had heard the other woman raise her voice-perhaps the first time Sosi

"Why not? Didn't you want to get back to the palace and Keni-diern?"

Sosi

"Because I saved your life with my black mana." Xantcha thought she understood, perfectly. "If only the archangels had been a little quicker. Is that what you've been doing while you sat all the time. Praying to the archangels: get here soon?"

"I didn't want you to wake up because while you were asleep there was no chance you'd use your black powers, and nothing would draw the archangels to us. Once you were awake ... You are ... You are so difficult. I was afraid to tell you anything."

"I'd be much less difficult," Xantcha said with exaggerated politeness, "if I knew the truth." She sat down opposite Sosi

"Kenidiern-"

Xantcha rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised that he is at the heart of the truth?"

"You are very difficult. It is the black mana in you. It rules you. The Lady said so."

Xantcha wondered what the Lady had said about Urza, but that would have been a truly difficult question. "I know nothing about black mana, but I won't argue with your Lady's judgment. Go on ... please ... before we run out of time."

"How can you run out of time?"

Xantcha shrugged. "Just talk."

"The Lady smiled on Kenidiern and I. She has never encouraged the divisions between the sisterhood and the angels. We had her blessing to come to the palace, but before we could be together he was sent away, and I was

chosen to accompany you. I would not have objected," Sosi

"To send me away to die or to send you away to die with me?"

Sosi

That was a criticism Xantcha had never heard from Urza's lips.

"You would never do among the sisters or the angels, but if I were to speak to the Lady, I would tell her that except for your black mana you would make a most excellent archangel, and I think she would agree. I was-am-young among the sisters, but I have-had-the Lady's confidence. I know she would not have sent me away without seeing me or telling me why."

"Then why hasn't she come looking for you? Wouldn't she notice you were missing, you and Kenidiern, both?"

Sosi

"Or maybe your Lady's not perfect?"

Sosi

"Hasn't found you, but maybe he is looking. How many of these floating islands are there? A thousand? Ten thousand? You shouldn't give up. He might be just one rock away. Think of the look on his face when he finds you here dead because you stopped trying to stay alive."

"Difficult."

"But right."

"Half right." A faint smile cracked the dirt on Sosi

"Seems to me that's exactly the place we should be going."

"We wouldn't be welcomed."

"Waste not, want not, Sosi

"Not enemies."

"Enemies. Anyone who wants you dead, Sosi

you."

That was a promise Xantcha didn't know if she'd be able to keep, but it had to be made. Anything that would get Sosi

"Difficult," Sosi

Xantcha stood up and offered her hand. "But right."

"I don't know where the palace is. Only the angels know."

"Didn't Kenidiern ever tell you how he flew in and out?"

"We never talked about such things."

Xantcha almost asked what did they talk about, but Sosi

"We can't walk to the edge of an island. I don't think we can walk out from under the one overhead. I tried, Xantcha, before you woke up. I tried to abandon you. I knew when you walked away that you'd have to come back."

"No apologies. Pd've done the same," Xantcha said and offered her hand again. "Come on. I've lived with worlds over my head, but not this close. Makes me nervous."

Sosi

Xantcha kept an eye on the island overhead to measure their progress. The lethargy that had slowed her on her previous walk was worse. They weren't covering ground the way she would have liked. Even so, they were getting nowhere relative to the convoluted underside above them. Sosi