The ancient fired a question to Romom in a language Xantcha couldn't understand.
Romom replied, in Argivian, "Shorter, Pakuya, by at least a third."
"You are old, Urza, for a young man, but compared to Equilor, you are scarcely weaned from your mother's breast. In Equilor, we began our search for enlightenment a hundred millennia ago. Do not wonder, then, that you could not see our defenses as you passed through them."
"You will think differently when the Phyrexians arrive!"
"They are a small folk with small ambitions, smaller dreams. We have nothing to offer them. Perhaps we were
wrong about you."
The ancient added something short and decisive in the other language. Watching Urza as closely as she watched the household, Xantcha realized that Urza couldn't skim the thoughts of these deceptively simple folk.
"It is late," Tessu said, putting a polite, yet unmistakable end to the discussion. She rose to her feet. Romom rose beside her. "Time to rest and sleep. The sun will rise."
The rest of the household stood and bowed their heads as Romom and Tessu helped the ancient from the atrium. Moments later, Urza and Xantcha were alone.
"This is the place!" Urza said directly in her mind.
"The old one said not."
"She is testing us. Tomorrow, when I meet with these elders, I will have what I have long wished to learn."
In her private thoughts, Xantcha wondered how Urza knew the ancient was a woman, then chided herself for thinking he could be right about such a small thing when he seemed so wrong about the rest. The ancient had talked to Urza as Urza often talked to her, but he hadn't noticed the slights.
"They have secrets," Xantcha warned but no reply formed in her mind, and she couldn't know if Urza had retrieved her thought.
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?"