Xantcha Arrives in Efuan Pincar
Previous: Xantcha’s Phyrexian Origins and the Sphere
Xantcha wakes up from her memories just in time to avoid crashing into a tree. That’s the kind of chapter opening that sets the tone for what’s ahead.
Efuan Pincar Has Changed
Twenty years ago, Efuan Pincar was a quiet backwater on the wrong side of the island of Gulmany. Now it’s a war zone. The first village Xantcha approaches is smoldering. The second has trees growing from abandoned hearths. The ones still standing are behind walls of stone, brick, and sharpened stakes.
Two factions have torn the country apart. The Shratta are religious extremists who started as a harmless ascetic sect preaching the 256 rules of Avohir’s holy book. Now they burn anyone who doesn’t live by those rules. The Red-Stripes are mercenaries hired by the crown to fight the Shratta. But instead of fighting each other, both groups roam the countryside terrorizing villagers.
Every village tells Xantcha the same thing: Tabarna doesn’t know. If Tabarna knew, he would help us. Please, take our message to Tabarna.
It’s heartbreaking in that quiet, specific way Lynn Abbey does well. These aren’t epic battle scenes. They’re old people in ruined villages who have no young men left, begging a stranger for help.
Why This Place
Xantcha chose Efuan Pincar because among any ten men there, at least one looks like Kayla Bin-Kroog’s description of Mishra: tall, dark-haired, intense. But with the war taking every young man into one army or the other, her pool has shrunk to almost nothing.
She rides a swaybacked horse to Medran, a market town. Red-Stripe guards at the gate give her attitude. She’s disguised as a young nobleman, which is a dangerous look in a place where both sides target the wealthy.
The Slave
In the market plaza, Xantcha spots a group of chained people outside a tavern. Slaves. And one of them is staring at her like she’s responsible for his condition.
Kayla Bin-Kroog had written about Mishra: “He replied that he was their slave, not their leader. He laughed and added that I, too, was a slave to my people, but his eyes were haunted as he laughed, and there were scars around his wrists.”
Xantcha looks at this dark-haired young slave staring at her across a hundred paces and thinks: that’s him. That’s my Mishra.
The Purchase
The slave master is a huge woman drinking beer in the tavern. Slavery is technically illegal in Efuan Pincar, so Xantcha frames it as ransom. Five gold nari, a fortune. The slaver gives Xantcha a black rod for controlling slaves and tells Garve, her eunuch assistant, to cut the slave out.
Garve nearly chokes the young man to death with his collar in the process. Xantcha warns him: “I want him alive.”
What follows is a tense scene. The young man can barely walk. He’s covered in sores and bruises. The chain between his ankles makes every step a fight. But he stares at Xantcha with an intensity that feels like a challenge.
Xantcha gives him bread. He reaches past the piece she offers and grabs the whole loaf. “You’re bold for a slave,” she says. “You’re small for a master,” he counters.
I love this exchange. In two sentences, you know exactly who this person is.
His Name Is Rat
Xantcha tells him his new name will be Mishra. He laughs. “Oh, yes, Master Urza.”
He knows The Antiquity Wars. He can read and write. He was not born a slave. His real name is Ratepe. Rat for short.
When Xantcha tells him he can call her Xantcha and that Urza wouldn’t like to be called Master, Rat fires back: “If I’m Mishra and you work for Urza, shouldn’t your name be Tawnos? You’re a little bit small for the part.”
Then he spots Red-Stripes entering the plaza and starts slapping his old collar against his thigh like a whip. Xantcha realizes that Red-Stripes are responsible for him being enslaved. She also smells glistening oil on one of the Red-Stripes. A sleeper. A Phyrexian.
She hunches down, hiding her scent. Rat won’t stop talking. She crushes his hand until the sores pop. “Quiet!”
This whole scene in the plaza is brilliantly tense. Xantcha is afraid, not of the Red-Stripes, but of the Phyrexian among them. She has secrets she can’t afford to lose. And Rat, who has no idea what’s really going on, keeps pushing her buttons because that’s all he knows how to do anymore.
They need to get out of town. But Rat can barely walk, and they’re a mismatched pair that draws eyes everywhere they go.