Tessu and Romom returned. Romom said there was a special chamber where those who would speak to the elders waited for the sun to rise. For Xantcha, who was just as glad not be included, there was a narrow bedchamber at the end of a cloistered corridor, a change of clothes, and a worried question:
"You will bathe before sunrise?"
She answered in the same tone, "If I may bathe unobserved?"
"The mountain will see you."
There were no roofs over any of the chambers. Xantcha wondered what they did when it rained, but, "The mountain is not a problem."
"You have customs that inhibit you?"
Xantcha nodded. If that explanation would satisfy Tessu, she'd provide no other.
"I will not interfere, but I cannot sleep until you have bathed."
"Your customs?"
Tessu nodded, and with her clean clothes under her arm Xantcha followed her host to the dark and quiet atrium. If Tessu failed to contain her curiosity, Xantcha was none the wiser. As smooth and hairless as the day she crawled out of her vat, Xantcha eased herself into the starlit, steaming pool. A natural hot spring kept the water pleasantly warm. A gutter-white, of course, and elegantly simple-carried the overflow away. She'd scrubbed herself clean in a matter of moments and, knowing that Tessu waited in the atrium, should have toweled herself off immediately, but the mountain was watching her and she watched back.
It had many eyes-Xantcha lost count at thirty-threeand, remembering the bats, the eyes were probably nothing more than caves, still, the sense of observation was inescapable. After staring so intently at shades of black and darkness, Xantcha thought she saw flickering lights in
some of the cave eyes, thought the lights formed a rippling web across the mountain. Xantcha thought a number of things until she realized she was standing naked beside the pool, at which point all her thoughts shattered and vanished. She grabbed her clothes, both clean and filthy, and retreated into the atrium.
"You are unwell?" Tessu asked discreetly from the shadows as Xantcha wrestled with unfamiliar clasps and plackets.
"It did see me."
Tessu failed to repress a chuckle. "They will not harm you, Xantcha."
Urza was right. They were being tested. Xantcha hoped she had passed.
Xantcha slept well and awoke to the unmistakable sounds of children being quiet outside her door. They were not so fluent in Argivian as the household's adult members, but the tallest of the three boys-who understandably took himself to be older than Xantcha and therefore entitled to give her orders-made it clear that sunrise was coming and it was time for guests to come outside and join the family in its morning rituals.
The eastern horizon had barely begun to brighten when Xantcha settled into what was evidently a place of honor between Tessu and the ancient. They faced west toward the mountain, which was as monolithic black in the pre-dawn light as it was during Xantcha's bath. There were no prayers, a relief, and no Urza or Romom or Brya, either. Brya's absence could be explained by the motionless serenity with which the household awaited the coming of daylight. No toddler could sit so still for so long.
Xantcha herself was challenged by the discipline. Her mind ached with unasked questions, her nose itched, then her toes, and the nearly unreachable spot between her shoulder blades. She was ready to explode when light struck the mountain's rounded crest. As sunrises went, it was not spectacular. The air was clear. There were no clouds anywhere to add contrast or movement to the surprisingly slow progression of color and light on the mountainside.
But that, Xantcha realized, was Equilor's mystery and revelation. Those who dwelt at the edge of time had gone past a need for the spectacular; they'd learned to appreciate the subtlest differences. They'd conquered boredom even more effectively than the perfect folk of Serra's realm. They could wait forever and a day, which Xantcha supposed was a considerable accomplishment, though nothing she wished to emulate.
Find what you're looking for! she urged the absent Urza, moments before the dawn revealed two white-clad figures moving among the mountain's many caves.
The ancient rapped Xantcha sharply on the back. "Pay attention! Watch close!"
Guessing that some rite of choosing or choice was about to take place, Xantcha did her best to follow the ancient's advice, but it proved impossible. Brilliant lights suddenly began to flash from the cave mouths, as if each contained a mirror. She blinked rapidly and to no useful effect. Each cave mouth had its own rhythm, no matter how Xantcha tried, her eyes were quickly, painfully blinded by reflected sunlight.
"You'll learn," the ancient chortled, while tears ran down Xantcha's cheeks.
The dazzle ended.
Tessu embraced Xantcha with a hearty "Good morning" and pulled her to her feet before releasing her. Xantcha had scarcely dried her face on her sleeve before the rest of the household followed Tessu's example and greeted her with the same embrace they used with one another. She had never been so carefully included in a family gathering, and seldom felt so out of place. Her vision was still awash in purple and green blobs when she and Tessu were alone in the atrium.
"You aren't used to it yet," Tessu said gently. "You'll learn."
"That's what the ancient said."
"Ancient? Oh, Pakuya. She'll go up the mountain herself, I think, after you and Urza leave. We've been waiting quite a long time, even for us, for you to arrive."
The certainty in Tessu's voice was an unexpected relief. "Urza's in one of the caves, right?"
"Keodoz, I think. Romom will say for certain when he returns this afternoon."
Keodoz, the name of the cave or the elder who occupied it? Xantcha stifled idle curiosity in favor of a more important question: "Do you know when Urza will return?"
"Tomorrow or the next day. Whenever he and Keodoz have finished."
It was nearly twenty days before neighbors spotted a white-robed man coming down the mountain. By then Xantcha knew that there was no difference between the cave and the elder-or more accurately, elders-who dwelt within it. Romom, Tessu, and the rest of the Equilor community-and there was only the one community at the edge of time-lived their mortal lives in expectation of the day when they'd climb the mountain one last time to merge with their ancestors.
Despite their focus on their cave-dwelling ancestors, the folk of Equilor weren't a morbid people. They laughed with one another, loved their children, and took genuine delight in the small events of daily life. They argued, held grudges, and gossiped among themselves and about the elders, who, despite their collective spirits, were not without individual foibles. Keodoz, Xantcha learned, was known to be long-winded and supremely self-confident. As Urza's time in the caves had lengthened, the household began to joke that Keodoz had found a soulmate-a notion that distressed Xantcha. Idyllic ways notwithstanding, Equilor was not a place where she wanted to spend eternity.
When she heard that Urza had been spotted, she left the house at once and jogged along the stone road until she met up with him.
"Did you get your answers ?" she asked, adding, "I can be ready to leave before sundown."
"I have only scratched the surface, Xantcha. We are young compared to them. We know so little, and they have been collecting knowledge for so long. A thousand years wouldn't be enough time. Ten thousand, even a hundred thousand wouldn't be too much. You cannot imagine what the elders know."
Of course she couldn't imagine. She was Phyrexian.
"Remember why we came here. What about vengeance? Your brother? Dominaria? Phyrexia!"
He grabbed her and lifted her into the air. "Keodoz knows so much, Xantcha! Do you remember, after we left Phyrexia, how I was unable to return to Dominaria? I said it was as if the portion of the multiverse that held Dominaria had been squeezed and sealed away from the rest. I was right, Xantcha. Not only was I right, but I was the one who had squeezed and twisted it when I emptied the sylex bowl! It wasn't evident at first-well, it was. Dominaria was cooler when I left, but I didn't understand how the two were related. But it was in my mind, when I used the sylex, to protect my home for all time, and the bowl's power was so great that my wish was granted. No artifact device, nor planeswalker's will, can breach the Shard that the sylex created. The elders here at Equilor could not breach it."