Xantcha and Ratepe Take Flight Together
This is post 8 of a chapter-by-chapter retelling of “Planeswalker” by Lynn Abbey, Book II of the Artifact Cycle in Magic: The Gathering.
Previous: Ratepe Tells His Story by the Fire
The Morning After
Chapter 7 opens with Xantcha waking up from a nightmare. Ratepe actually woke her up. He could have run. He could have tried to bash her head in while she slept. Instead, he woke her from a bad dream because he decided she needed someone to take care of her.
That’s kind of hilarious, considering Xantcha is a 3000-year-old Phyrexian who can fly and has fought demons. But Ratepe doesn’t know all of that yet. He still sees a strange boy who seems in over their head. His reasoning for staying is practical. He has a chain between his feet. He’s in the middle of nowhere. And honestly? Xantcha surprised him by being kind enough to rescue villagers. That earned his loyalty more than any threat ever could.
Flying Lessons (Sort Of)
Getting Ratepe into the sphere is rough. The guy has an intense fear of heights. Not just regular “I don’t like this” fear. He genuinely believes the sky is watching him, waiting to throw him down. He vomits before they even get off the ground. He freezes up. He clings to Xantcha for dear life.
Xantcha tries the gentle approach first. Talk to me, she says. Put your fears into words. But when that doesn’t work, she goes full drill sergeant. She makes the sphere tumble and plummet and spin until Ratepe is so terrified that his actual fear of heights becomes the lesser problem. It’s harsh, but it works. He starts talking.
And here’s the thing about their conversations in the air. They’re actually getting to know each other. Ratepe tells his life story again. He talks about wanting to join the Red-Stripes to fight the Shratta. Xantcha warns him that there are Phyrexians mixed in with the Red-Stripes. She tries to explain what Phyrexians are. How they replace their flesh with metal. How blood is a mistake to them.
Ratepe is a thinker. He doesn’t just accept what she says. He pushes back. You say you smelled Phyrexians, but everyone looked like regular people to me. Your story about Urza and Mishra sounds insane. He flat out tells her that she’s not his “sort of flesh.” So Xantcha cuts her own finger to prove she bleeds.
His response? “That wasn’t necessary. You’d know where to cut yourself.” Cold, logical, and kind of fair.
The Burning Village
This is where the chapter really picks up. They’re flying over Efuan Pincar when Ratepe spots a village on fire. He insists they help. Xantcha says no, she’s not a sorcerer, there’s nothing she can do. But Ratepe won’t let it go. He throws himself against the sphere trying to redirect it. When Xantcha restrains him, he actually stabs a sword through the sphere’s wall.
This is wild. The sphere is connected to the cyst in Xantcha’s gut. Damaging the sphere causes her real physical pain. She’s about to shatter his jaw when he drops this line: “Go ahead. Tell your precious Urza that you killed his brother a second time.”
It’s manipulative. It’s brave. It’s exactly what Mishra would do. And it works.
Xantcha turns the sphere toward the village. She gives Ratepe the sword and tells him this is his fight. He hobbles through the gate in chains, carrying a scabbarded sword because he forgot to take the scabbard off. Meanwhile Xantcha pulls out her real weapons, coins that glow white-hot when thrown, and Urza’s magical armor. She tears through the Shratta attackers one by one. An arrow bounces off her armor. She kills an archer with a glowing coin. She takes down swordsmen with kicks and strikes.
She finds Ratepe in the village temple, standing over a bloody wall of Shratta scripture. He’s killed a man, probably his first. He’s in shock. But he notices something important. The man he killed isn’t actually Shratta. No tattooed hands. Clean-shaven face. The Shratta never cut their beards.
The Real Conspiracy
This is the big reveal. The Red-Stripes have been disguising themselves as Shratta and committing atrocities. They write Shratta slogans in blood on the walls, then leave no witnesses. The people pray for Red-Stripe warriors to save them from the Shratta, never knowing the Red-Stripes are the ones doing the killing.
And since Xantcha already knows Phyrexians have infiltrated the Red-Stripes, the picture gets darker. Are the Phyrexians manufacturing both sides of this conflict? Creating chaos for their own purposes?
Ratepe refuses to leave. He convinces Xantcha to help clear out the remaining Red-Stripes hiding outside the village, then ferry the survivors to safety one by one. It takes ten days. During that time, they leave Ratepe’s slave fetters draped across the defiled altar in the temple. A quiet, powerful moment.
The kid who was chained up and scared of heights just organized a rescue operation and made Xantcha, who has been alive for three millennia, do something she never would have done on her own.
Why This Chapter Matters
Chapter 7 is where Xantcha and Ratepe stop being captor and captive and start becoming actual partners. He challenges her. She shows him what she’s really capable of. They both see the Phyrexian threat more clearly because of each other.
Lynn Abbey does something smart here. She doesn’t just tell us these two are forming a bond. She puts them through fire, literally, and lets us watch them earn each other’s trust. The village sequence is violent and messy and morally complicated. Ratepe forces the issue and then can’t even fight. Xantcha does the fighting but resents being dragged into it. And yet by the end, they’re working together without being told to.