Urza vs. Gix 6

Urza and Gix locked themselves in a contest of pure will that manifested itself in an increasingly complex web of blue-white and crimson light. The spindle-shaped web stretched between Urza's eyes and Gix's gem-studded forehead. At its widest, which was also its middle and the middle of the chamber, the web did not descend to the floor. Sparing nothing for effect, the web gave off neither heat nor sound and endured, without really changing, until Xantcha had to breathe again.

How long, she asked herself, could they remain enrapt in each other? Her best answer: for a very long time. She got up on her feet.

***

"You can't see everything changing . . . coming back from the past, or going back to it?"

She started to say that she couldn't see anything changing and swallowed the words. Shadows were growing in the Koilos chamber. Not shadows cast by the web's light, but shadows cast by time, growing more substantial as each moment passed. Metal columns grew along the walls. Great machines, worthy of Phyrexia, loomed up from the floor.

Beneath the widest part of the light-woven spindle a low platform came into being. Mirrors sprang up in a circle behind both Gix and Urza, behind Xantcha and Ratepe, as well. An object similar to Avohir's great book, but made from metal like Urza's staff, grew atop the platform. As Xantcha watched, Phyrexian glyphs formed on the smooth metal leaves.

Xantcha was waiting for those glyphs to become legible when dull-colored metal sprang out of the central platform. The metal shaped itself into four rising prongs, like uplifted hands.

"His eyes, Xantcha! His eyes! They're going back. Gix is dragging them back through time!"

The Weakstone and the Mightstone had pulled out of Urza's skull and were advancing through the spindle. Gix had said, The Thran are waiting.... And when the powerstones merged into the prongs, Urza would be in the hands of the Thran.

***

Chapter 24