PART THREE

CHAPTER FOURTEEN



SIRIS WATCHED the fire flutter and shake as the sea winds blew across it. Behind him, a cliffside set with ancient blocks formed a doorway cut into the stone. Majestic, only the ruins of this place remained. Isa’s people had draped tents between the half-fallen rocks, creating a semblance of civilization.

Water lapped against the shore nearby. Siris did not know much of the ocean, even though he’d grown up on what was essentially a very large island. This sheltered location was not an area he had ever traveled. He got the sense that few came this way. The God King’s lair here, chosen by Siris from among those offered, was a hidden place he claimed that even the Worker wouldn’t know about. A location locked only in his own memory.

Soldiers huddled nearby around their own fire. Not all of their force, only a select few. They couldn’t hide a full army here; just the equipment. The majority of the troops would remain back at the village in the valley.

Siris looked them over. These men had been recruited and trained to attack the Deathless – but so far, they hadn’t fought any. They’d been joined by two instead. They had to be wondering, are we being manipulated? Is this rebellion all just another Deathless game?

They were probably right.

Siris rose and walked along the path outside the ancient doorway into the cliff. Sounds inside evoked strange emotions in him. Metal against metal, the clanking of tools. Raidriar’s Devoted worked, with recruited soldiers as laborers, to install the resurrection device and the Pinnacle.

Siris could almost remember a time when machinery like this had been commonplace. What had that life been like? Machines like TEL to work the fields, hunt for food, build houses? Surely it would have been a paradise. But the Deathless chose this world instead – a world of poverty and sorrow, a world where survival was a constant struggle. Why?

Once past the doorway, Siris looked along a small pathway that wound upward between the rocks. Isa sat up there on a large stone, arms crossed on top of her legs, looking out over the ocean.

Siris almost walked up to her, but he recognized that hers was not the posture of one who wanted company.

I should have told her, he thought. Right from the start, I should have told her what I was planning.

Clinking footsteps came from the entrance a short distance back. Siris turned and spotted the God King striding out. Raidriar had reluctantly returned Dynn’s armor, choosing instead to wear armor taken from one of the dead. Dynn had been found alive, as promised. But lacking a hand, also as promised.

Raidriar walked up to Siris, balancing an unsheathed sword against his shoulder, edge toward the sky. “You show them your face,” Raidriar said from within his helm. “Have you forgotten that we do not do this?”

“It’s not that I’ve forgotten. It’s that I don’t care.”

Raidriar grunted. Siris couldn’t help shifting his stance to be better ready to dodge that sword, should it swing. And yet . . . he knew that it would not. They had killed one another many hundreds of times over, but that had been then. This was now. They had better things to do.

He realized, disturbed, that the Dark Self trusted the God King not to betray his word. Oh, he knew that Raidriar would eventually try to destroy him. But he would not violate his oath. Raidriar was an arrogant, imperious tyrant – but he also held honor in high regard. He might believe humans were beneath him, but he saw lying as even farther beneath him.

Raidriar turned, looking up the rock cliff toward Isa. “Your woman is not taking this well.”

“It might have worked better if you hadn’t interfered.”

“Oh, no need to be bitter. I suspect she’ll come around. They find us difficult to resist.”

“That’s so casually insulting I’m not going to bother responding,” Siris said, looking at Raidriar. “What is our first move?”

“We will need to create a strike team of Deathless from among those mortals you trust, then we must reclaim the Weapon.”

“You’re sure the Soulless one has it?”

“Reasonably sure,” Raidriar said, shrugging. “Either that, or it is a trap. I doubt we will know the truth unless we try.” He twisted his sword in his hand, swinging it to the side. “The Soulless will think, to an extent, that it is me. The Worker will have neutered its ability to rule, but it will try anyway. And it will be able to fight.”

“As well as you?” Siris asked.

“Likely. It hasn’t been that long.”

“That long? How does that matter?”

“You really don’t . . . Of course you don’t. You insist on basking in the ignorance with which this latest incarnation has plagued you. Bah. It is nothing but a copy of me, using the residual pattern from one of my rebirthing chambers. Its Q.I.P. will be fragmented, incomplete. Manufactured. The Soulless will have some of my memories and most of my skills and inclinations. But it will degrade over time. They live ten years at most.”

“Hell take me,” Siris said. “You mean, one of us could be one of these things, and not even know it . . .”

“Don’t be daft, Ausar,” the God King said. “You’d know. I’d know. It will know. It may be trying to pretend otherwise, but deep down, it will know what it is. You aren’t Soulless; neither am I. The difference is obvious to those who know what to look for. That is why my copy will have gone into isolation from other Deathless.” Raidriar raised his sword, looking at it thoughtfully. “You’ll need to kill it and recover the Infinity Blade. That thing is an abomination of the worst kind.”

“Why me? Why not you?”

Raidriar slipped the sword into the sheath at his side, then turned his helmed gaze toward Siris. “I have always believed,” he said, “that when one has a task that needs to be accomplished, one seeks out the best tool for the job. Distasteful though it is to admit, I do not know of anyone better suited to this task than you.”

“Killing you,” Siris said, nodding. “This why you really came for me, isn’t it? You weren’t certain you could kill the copy yourself, so you sought out an expert.”

Raidriar did not respond. He folded his arms instead. “You agree that we need the Weapon?”

“To fight the Worker? Most certainly. And you’re right – I am the one to recover it.”

Raidriar nodded.

“But not with a strike team,” Siris said. “I’ll go alone.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. As you said, I am the right . . . tool for the job.”

Raidriar nodded.

“Aren’t you worried?” Siris asked. “What if I come back with the Blade and use it against you immediately?”

“It is a risk.”

“And?”

“Well, I am reasonably certain I can out-think you, old friend. But the Worker is a different story. If one of the two of you is to hold that weapon, I’d much prefer it be you. Besides, I suspect that once you have it, you’ll give it to me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“We shall see,” Raidriar said, nodding to the side. Isa had begun to pick her way down from her perch. “I will make certain the rebirthing chamber is attuned to your Q.I.P. If you die facing my Soulless, we can rebuild you.”

“If your Soulless really has the Weapon,” Siris said, walking toward Isa, “then the rebirthing chamber won’t matter.” With that, he left Raidriar behind.

It’s too bad, a part of Siris thought, that there isn’t a good reason for Raidriar to go fight the Soulless. Seeing him die, skewered on the Infinity Blade while fighting a version of himself . . . How satisfying would that be?

He stopped in front of Isa, but she passed him by, walking toward the camp of soldiers.

“I forgave you,” Siris said, turning after her.

Isa stopped in place.

“Just after we first met,” Siris said, “You betrayed me and tried to kill me. I forgave you. Do I not deserve the same consideration?”

“The problem isn’t forgiving you, Siris.” Isa turned back and stepped up to him. “The problem is that I’m afraid you don’t need to be forgiven.”

“I should have told you what I was planning.”

“Yeah. Sure. I agree, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that I might have spent two years raising up a rebellion, only to give right back in to the Deathless.”

“You don’t–”

“He’s right. You’re right. They’re not just immortal, they’re near-invincible. It makes perfect sense. How do we fight them? We make our own Deathless. Ideal. Wonderful. We set up another aristocracy to replace the one before, and everything just continues on. New names, same rules . . .”

“It won’t be that way.”

“Can you promise that, Siris? Really?”

“I . . .” The Dark Self still lurked inside. “No. I can’t.” How he wished he could, but the truth was that he couldn’t even trust himself. He’d made an alliance with a monster – an honest monster, perhaps, but still a monster of the worst kind. Raidriar, the God King himself.

Isa sighed, then leaned against him. He hesitantly put his arm around her, then closed his eyes, breathing in her scent.

“I’m not built for this,” Isa said, head against his chest. “I keep trying to find an excuse to run off, hide in a tavern somewhere, and wait until everything blows over. And you . . . I worry you are built for this – and that’s more dangerous than anything else.”

“I know. I feel the same way.”

“Then what do we do?”

“For now?” Siris said, holding her. “This. We do this. Tomorrow, I will go to recover the Infinity Blade.”

“And then?”

“And then . . . then we try to save this land without ruining it any further than we have to.”

DEVIATION THE EIGHTH



URIEL FOUND Mr. Galath on his way out of the building.

Just in time.

The chairman had two men carrying umbrellas for him. Galath was the type of man who would never have to fiddle with car doors. Someone always opened them for him.

Uriel didn’t bother to use an umbrella. He was already as wet as he could get, he figured. He crossed the parking lot in the rain. One of Mr. Galath’s bodyguards moved to intercept him, but the chairman stopped the man with a hand on the arm.

“Uriel?” Galath asked. “Good graces, man. What are you doing out here in this weather?”

“You have an opening in your new project,” Uriel said. His voice rasped as he spoke.

“My new project,” Galath said, voice monotone. “I don’t–”

“Sir,” one of the guards said, grabbing Uriel. The hulking brute had a face like a boulder. “There is blood on his shirt, sir.”

“Uriel, what have you done?” Galath demanded.

“Adram was unsuitable for your project, sir,” Uriel said. “I removed him from it.”

The bodyguard’s grip on Uriel grew tighter. Rain no longer hit him; it thrummed against the guard’s umbrella.

“I did not think you had this in you, Uriel,” Galath said at last.

“Adram spoke of . . . immortality,” Uriel said.

“He must have been delusional.”

“Am I also, then?” Uriel asked. “Hidden bunkers around the world, funded quietly through shell corporations of shell corporations. Secret facilities to build weapons. A war you’re intentionally precipitating.”

The guard moved to tow Uriel away.

“No, Gortoel,” the chairman said. “This is what we have been seeking. Wits and initiative. Perhaps I did not give you proper credit, Uriel. I had not thought to have many statisticians among the elite of my new world. Perhaps you have proved me wrong.”

“I accept your offer,” Uriel spat, “and reject it too.”

Galath frowned, cocking his head.

“I don’t want this gift for myself,” Uriel said. He glanced back at the too-red car, which he’d raced here with a body in the seat beside him. “I want it for my son.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN



SIRIS STOPPED at the edge of the cliff overlooking his destination.

That same castle complex. The Soulless was here, of all places. Empty bridges spanning chasms, beautiful arches in the sunlight. The twisting tree out front, dry, as if dead for an eternity. Siris could smell the dungeons, hear chains rattle on the lift, feel the ground tremble from the felled daerils.

Was it a message? This place, so familiar. Here, he had killed the God King for the first time.

I died here too, he thought, fitting on his helm. Dozens of times, perhaps hundreds. He didn’t remember those deaths, each the end of a life lived as the Sacrifice – a boy raised to be sent to this palace to fight the God King.

The ruined wall, where enormous golems had attacked the throne room, still lay broken. In fact, the entire palace was as he remembered it from years ago. It almost seemed . . . homey, if a deathtrap designed to kill him could be called such.

Behind him, Terr helped TEL break down the camp. Siris had agreed, under pressure from both Isa and Raidriar, to bring Terr and the small construct with him, to help get him out if something went very wrong. In turn, however, he’d insisted that Isa remain behind. If this was a trap, then he didn’t want her caught in it as well. That would leave only Raidriar to lead the rebellion.

Siris kind of wanted to avoid that.

“Here, sir,” Terr said, handing over a small buttonlike device.

Siris took it, frowning at the balding man.

Terr cleared his throat. “It’s a–”

“Recording device,” Siris realized, the Dark Self filling in the holes. “It will create an aura around me that sends information back to you. We have magics like this?”

“Recovered in the latest infiltration, sir,” Terr said. “We didn’t know what it was until that priest told us. We’ll be able to watch you on a little mirror and see if you need help.”

If I need help, Terr, Siris thought, slipping the device into the small leather fold just inside his gauntlet, I severely doubt that a mortal like you will be of any help. He pulled on his gauntlets, completing his armor.

Nearby, TEL – made completely of rock this time – scrambled up.

“Remain here, TEL,” Siris said.

“But–”

“Here,” Siris said more firmly.

The small construct obeyed. From there, Siris trod a very familiar trail. Down from the cliff overlooking the God King’s palace, across the barren, packed death zone surrounding it, to the pathway leading toward the gates. The old palace lay decrepit, stone collapsed in places. Why would the Soulless come here? Why not someplace more grand?

On the pathway close to the palace, Siris found the first daeril. Dead.

Siris knelt beside the creature. It had been hacked to pieces with a sharp blade. He thought he recognized the beast from its orange-red skin, twisted too-long limbs, inhuman face. It was one of those who had greeted Siris when he’d come to this place years back, after defeating the God King.

But this creature was freshly dead; the blood was dry, the body cool, but rot had not yet set in. Wary, Siris picked his way across the ruined grounds.

He found more dead just beyond the gateway. An entire heap of trolls, mountainous beasts that he’d once assumed to be unintelligent – until he’d met one with an alarmingly strong wit. That troll had betrayed Siris, unfortunately.

He walked across the causeway and entered the grand hall. More dead daerils, and broken machines. A few chains hung down from the ceiling over a deep hole in the floor, remnants of the lift. It had been destroyed, apparently during the same battle that had killed the tower’s defenders.

With a sigh, Siris removed his gauntlets, stepped back, then dashed forward and jumped out over the void, catching one of the chains. He swung back and forth until the momentum ran out, then began to climb upward, toward the God King’s throne room.


ISA DRANK alone.

Contrary to what many would assume, she didn’t prefer to drink alone. She’d rather be out with the soldiers, enjoying their company. She liked people. Well, she liked listening to people. Analyzing them. She didn’t particularly like talking to them, but a woman could prefer being silent in the company of others, as opposed to drinking alone, couldn’t she?

You’d better not get yourself killed, Whiskers, she thought, taking a pull from her beer. She sat at a barlike shelf in the cavern of the God King’s hideout, waiting for contact from Siris.

“That is not a table,” said Eves, the stout Devoted, as he shuffled past her and checked on some wires. “That is a bank of very important, very holy equipment.”

“Yeah?” Isa said.

“Yes. And you’re drinking at it as if this were the bar of some tavern!”

“I’ll try not to spill,” Isa said, taking another pull on her drink.

The priest huffed and wandered away. Isa had watched him the entire day, including the point where – she was quite certain – he’d almost transformed himself into a Deathless. He’d primed the machine, set some input into the mirror, and stood facing it with sweat on his brow. Then he’d cursed and turned it all off before leaving to get some lunch.

Now he seemed to be fretting about other items. He eventually left to check on the men outside. He wouldn’t make himself Deathless unless permitted to do so by his god. Well, you have to admire his loyalty, she thought, taking another drink.

Wait. No you didn’t. The man was nearly as evil as his master, and culpable in his schemes and murders. That wasn’t loyalty to admire. She’d rather the man worshiped a rock than served the Deathless.

And I’ve basically delivered the rebellion to one of them. Damn. What did she think of Siris? No idea. Maybe the beer knew.

She took another drink.

“You pine for him.”

Isa spun, jumping from her stool, nearly throwing her mug toward the sound. The God King stood in the shadows back there, bare-chested, wearing the head of a jackal as some kind of illusion to hide his features.

She hadn’t seen or heard him enter. How long had he been there? Had he watched Eves consider making himself Deathless?

“You,” Isa said, “are one creepy bastard. You realize that?”

He stepped forward, watching her with eyes she could not see. “It is natural to be captivated by one of the Deathless. We are your gods, are we not? I would love to hear what you have spoken of when alone together, if only to judge what parts of his mortal upbringing he has adopted.”

“You think I’d tell you?”

“Of course not,” Raidriar said, walking over to her pitcher of beer. He sniffed at it, then – surprisingly – poured himself a mug. He raised it. “To our alliance.”

“Go suck on a rock.”

He drank anyway, the front of his illusory head engulfing the mug as he put it to his unseen lips. “I promise,” he said lightly, “that all in my lands will know freedom, prosperity, and ease for the next, say . . . thousand years. A mythologically appropriate number, wouldn’t you say?”

What?

“Before, when I first joined with Ausar, you insisted that you would keep fighting me. You said you would never turn the kingdom back over to me. Well, obviously, you are going to do just that. So I have decided it is time for benevolence to my people.” He sniffed, and wiped his hidden face with his hand. “After all, them hating their god was always just a means to an end, to ensure they kept sending the Sacrifices. I hardly need that anymore.”

“You think I’m going to just believe you? Accept that you’ve changed in an eyeblink? Become compassionate?”

“Changed?” Raidriar asked. “No, I have not changed. I am king and god to this people – I have always been both destroyer and life-giver. We do not change.” He inspected the bottom of his mug. “None save for Ausar. He is different. I have not yet decided fully if I find that remarkable or reprehensible.

“Regardless, child, human civilization goes in cycles. One cannot let them have prosperity for too long, or they will misuse it, destroying themselves and others. For this reason, they have been cast down – given humble roots, to inspire simple wholesomeness. Still, it has been a good long time since I have allowed a golden age, an age of discovery and wonder. I had been thinking of having one arrive soon; and for your rebellion, I have moved up the timetable.”

“Go suck on a rock,” she said again. “A muddy one.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Raidriar said. “I assume it’s a grander insult than it sounds. You really mean to keep fighting me?”

“Yes. We’ll rebel.”

He laughed. “Against what? Did you hear me? I’ll make the people free. You’ll lead my people to rebellion while those underneath the other Deathless are being beaten and oppressed? You will waste your time in the one place in the world where everyone will be fed and happy?”

“I . . .”

“I always keep my word,” Raidriar said. “You have won. Rebellion over. Freedom established. Congratulations.”

Isa felt nauseous. The problem was, he might be telling the truth. What would she do if he started treating everyone in his kingdom well, without any further need for bloodshed?

“With freedom proclaimed here,” Raidriar said, “with me becoming a benevolent god who grants technology and wonders, you could take your fighters to the other oppressive regimes. You could change the entire world, free hundreds of thousands. Or, I suppose, you could stay here to sputter and fight, becoming increasingly irrelevant as I bestow boon after boon.”

“I hate you,” she whispered.

“I think you know I don’t really care,” Raidriar said. He set his empty mug on the equipment, then strolled toward the way out. “But don’t sound so surprised that I have bested you. I have been doing this for a very long time, child. Did you think, perhaps, I had learned nothing in those thousands of years?”

He left.

Isa stared at her mug, fuming. Heaven take that creature.

I can’t fight things like him, she thought, angry – though she wasn’t completely sure why. Angry that Raidriar had agreed to give his people freedom, wealth, and technology? Why should that make her so furious?

She turned, looking at the equipment behind her.

She had watched Eves set it up, then almost use it.

She had watched very, very closely.

Oh, hell, she thought, realization dawning.


IT WAS quite an undertaking in full armor, but he was Deathless, and his body worked at a constant peak of efficiency. He arrived cautiously, peeking over the lip of the floor toward the throne room.

It appeared to be empty. The throne hadn’t even been repaired from the attack that Siris had fended off here, so long ago. He heard the faint drip of water leaking somewhere. Raidriar insisted that the copy was here, in this palace somewhere. Could the God King be wrong?

Siris rocked on the chain, swinging back and forth until he could throw himself out over the small gap onto the floor of the throne room. He landed with a crash of clanking armor, but came up quickly and slipped his sword from its sheath with a leathery rasp.

He waited there, in a crouch, listening. He heard only that same dripping from before. That, and . . . muttering?

What in the name of the seven? Siris thought, and spared a moment of amusement that his instinct – given him by his upbringing – was still to curse by Raidriar and his Pantheon.

He crossed the throne room and found an open door at the back. He could swear this hadn’t been here before – but, then, the opening looked to be hidden in the stonework. Perhaps it had existed, but Siris hadn’t found it.

The muttering came from inside. Siris located the source of the dripping. Not water, but blood, dripping from the toe of a daeril who had been nailed to the wall with a spear through its chest.

Siris stepped through the door and into a room of silvery metal and wires. Raidriar sat here, with no helm, muttering to himself and tapping his finger against a mirror.

Hell take me . . . Siris thought. The Soulless wore hair that hadn’t seen a comb in far too long. Its clothing was soiled, and beside it sat a plate of what appeared to be fingers. It raised one of these to its lips, gnawing on the flesh and tapping at the screen.

“He’s going to end it,” the Soulless muttered. “Boom. Gone.”

The Infinity Blade lay in a heap of swords beside the doorway. Discarded as if it were junk. Did that mean the Blade was a fake? Siris slipped it from the pile, causing several swords to clank.

The Soulless twisted in its seat, his eyes wide, hands clawlike and rigid. Siris raised the Blade, falling into a battle stance.

The Soulless snorted. “Come to kill me? Ha! Joke’s on you. Just a copy. How stupid you look!”

“You do know, then,” Siris said.

“Yes, yes. Just a copy. Everything is a copy.”

Siris frowned. “You’re a Soulless.”

“Everything is Soulless!” The clone ran fingers through its hair. “Whole world. We thought we were playing chess with him, you see. We’ve all gotten very good at the game. We know all the rules. Problem is, he’s not playing chess. He’s playing solitaire!”

The Soulless’s mind, it appeared, had not lasted the ten years that Raidriar had said it would.

“Solitaire!” The Soulless put another severed finger into its mouth and chewed at the flesh. “Don’t you see? Different game entirely! Different pieces? We’re the pieces! We aren’t playing against him.”

“It is hard,” Siris said, lowering the Infinity Blade, “to realize you are not what you thought. I understand.”

“Wait.” The Soulless stopped laughing, then focused on him more directly. “Ausar?”

Siris nodded.

“I should probably kill you,” the Soulless said. Instead, it turned away from him back to his mirror, spitting out a fingerbone with the flesh chewed free. “It’s hard to decide. What is my allegiance? Do I resent my prime, the real Raidriar? Or do I wish him to survive, so at least one of us can. Of course, he’s a copy too . . .”

“A copy?”

“Not of anyone specific,” it said. “But this whole world is a copy, you see, just like me . . .”

“Why did you kill the daerils?” Siris asked, looking at the fallen fingerbone.

“Killed everyone. I couldn’t let them see my face, and my helm was getting stuffy. The fingers are disgusting, I realize, but I need to eat something. Stops those damn corpses from scratching the ground, too. Yes, I’m quite mad. Combined effects of an unstable Q.I.P. and an existential crisis, I suspect. Dagger?”

“What–”

The Soulless spun and lunged for Siris in a fluid motion, carrying a dagger, lips wide and bloodied from its gruesome meal.

Siris took a step forward and rammed the Infinity Blade into the copy’s chest. The poor creature’s knife skidded ineffectually across Siris’s armor. It might have once had Raidriar’s skill – the dead daerils indicated that was likely the case – but by this point, the copy had fallen too far to fight with any real skill.

The Infinity Blade flashed briefly. Not as it would for even a lesser Deathless, and the corpse slipped off the Blade.

Siris shook his head, stepping up to the mirror that the Soulless had been inspecting. He read in silence for a moment.

Then he gasped.


ISA RESTED her fingers on the machine.

This cursed machine . . . it was the source of everything wrong in the world. It was the source of them.

She almost went back to her drinking. She’d only had one mug so far, not enough to really even notice. Perhaps if she were more drunk, this decision would make more sense.

Don’t be stupid, she told herself, walking around the device.

She should destroy this machine. Stop Siris from being able to change any of her soldiers into abominations like he was.

But she didn’t. She stopped beside the control mirror instead and stared at it for a long, long time.

She wanted to fight them. She knew, deep down, there was only one way to do that. She’d rescued Siris because of that single fact – that without Deathless of their own, they had no chance.

It’s going to come to this, she thought. I can either make the decision myself, or I can be pushed into it.

That, in the end, was the deciding factor. She had always been, and always would be, the master of her own destiny. She would not let another make this choice for her.

She made it herself, and began working on the machine, pushing the buttons she’d memorized as Eves worked earlier in the day. It was time to become one of the things she hated most in the world.

She’d just have to see if she could live with herself after it was done.

DEVIATION THE NINTH



“YOU ARE fortunate,” Galath said as his scientists prodded at Jori’s limp body. “He is not quite gone. His Q.I.P. can still be associated with this form.”

Uriel knelt beside the table. “You’re going to destroy the world.”

“The world will destroy itself,” Galath said. “It does this periodically. I simply intend to ride that wave of destruction, to shape what develops next.”

The room was dense with monitors, beeping equipment, and metallic surfaces. Galath had built one of his bunkers beneath the offices where Uriel had worked each day.

Uriel felt tired, drained completely, soaking wet. Was that really . . . really his son, there? That pale body, not breathing, even though the scientists spoke of him as if he were alive.

“Sir,” one of the scientists said. “We are ready. But . . .”

Galath glanced to them. “Speak.”

“A youth?” the scientist said. “Not even through puberty yet? Will this really aid our empire?”

“A youth,” Galath said. “With no preconceptions. Yes, this will be good. And I am not to be questioned.”

“Yes . . . Yes, sir.”

“You will make him a king,” Uriel said, still kneeling beside the table. He rested his hand on his son’s arm.

“Those who survive will all be kings,” Galath said. “And more. But I will not give it to him. Each will find his or her way.” He nodded to his people.

Uriel stepped back as the process began. Injections. Organ scans. Tissue embedding. Radiation. All made by devices he did not recognize and probably could not comprehend. And yet, despite the wonder of it all, he thought he heard Galath whisper, “So primitive . . .” as they worked.

At the end of it, the scientists withdrew, congratulating themselves. Galath moved to leave as well. Jori remained on the cold metal table. He still seemed dead to Uriel.

“I will not repeat the process for you,” Galath noted from the door. “His father living into immortality would only serve to hinder him. I will not have the gods of the new world running at the whims of their daddies.”

“I don’t care,” Uriel whispered. “Project Omega. It’s about much more than just the teleportation devices, isn’t it?”

“Obviously,” Galath said. “Now say goodbye. I want you out of my bunker in five minutes.” He closed the door, leaving them alone in the sterile room.

Jori stirred.

His breath catching, Uriel stepped up to the table. He took the boy’s hand in his own, and felt tears well up as Jori took a deep breath.

Jori opened his eyes. “Father?” the youth asked. Barely thirteen. How would he survive in a world of gods?

He will survive, Uriel thought. That is enough.

“Why are you crying?” Jori asked.

“Son, I am . . . sending you to glory.”

The boy started to look panicked. “Father?”

“The world is a broken, ruined place,” Uriel said. “I want you to make it better. Stop them from fighting, son. Take away their guns and their bombs. They don’t deserve what they’ve been given. Mankind had a chance to reach the stars – but all they did was use that abilty to cast down fire upon one another. Eyes always downward, never toward the lights above . . .”

“I’m scared,” Jori said.

“I know.” Uriel kissed him on the forehead. The only beautiful thing left in the world.

Uriel took off his wristwatch, including the datachips. “Take this. Look at the numbers. Understand them. Read what I have written. It is all you’ll have of me. Be a king, son. Be a king.”

“Father!” Jori said, taking the watch but reaching for him. He was still tied down, however, on the table.

Uriel walked from the room.

Father!” Jori was weeping. So was Uriel. He passed Galath in the hall outside, speaking with one of the scientists. One of the guards moved to open the door for Uriel and escort him out.

“Where will you go?” Galath called after him, sounding genuinely curious.

Uriel looked back. “Does it matter?”

“No,” Galath said. “I suppose it doesn’t.”

Uriel stepped out into the metallic hallway, rode the elevator up to the main floor, and let the guard shove him out into the rain again. He started walking.

And did not stop.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN



ISA’S EYES didn’t itch.

She walked along the rocky shore near the God King’s hideout, in awe. Ever since she’d been a little girl, her eyes had itched in the spring. It was just something that happened to her. She’d learned to live with it. She hardly noticed it anymore.

Except now it was gone. In its place was energy. She no longer felt the muddled drowsiness that sometimes struck in late afternoon. She didn’t feel lethargic after sitting for a long time. She didn’t sneeze. Her nostrils, both of them, were perpetually unclogged.

Heaven above, she thought, holding her hand up before herself. This is ecstasy. Not a false ecstasy, like the buzz from something narcotic. No, this was a thrill for life, a sense of really living that she’d never known.

Being Deathless was about more than just not dying. She felt as if she could run a hundred miles and barely break a sweat.

Boots on the rocks. She spun to find the God King strolling nearby, wearing his stolen armor. He stopped, hands behind his back.

Damn him. He knew.

“We have been . . . summoned,” he said.

“What?”

“To the rebel village. Your man wishes you and me to meet him there.”

“The original plan was for him to meet us back here.”

“So it was. He won’t say why we are to return, only that we are.” The God King did not make a move to walk away.

“Well, I suppose we should be off, then,” she said, turning and walking toward the dock, where a commandeered ship waited. It could get them near to the village in under a day, and a few hours more of riding would bring them to the meeting point.

“Finding it hard to despise,” the God King asked, “that which blesses you so?”

She said nothing.

“You are better than them now,” he said. “These lesser beings.”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said, not looking at him as she walked past.

“Will you deny facts?” he asked, sounding amused. “Will you deny that you are superior? It is apparent what you are.”

“I have a stronger body,” she said, stopping. “That doesn’t make me superior.”

“And what does?” Raidriar asked. “Better understanding? Wisdom granted by eons of life? A perspective that no mortal can hope to understand.” He walked up beside her. “This is why we rule. It is simple, it is logical, and it is purposeful. Equality is a sham. There must be kings – so why not have them be men and women who are truly distinct – privileged not just by a fluke of birth, but by capacity, ability, and knowledge? Something to think on as you hate me.”

He walked on toward the ship.


SIRIS RODE his horse hard.

Harder than was wise. Harder than the beast would be able to take.

Hell take me, he thought. Oh, seven. Worker, no . . .


ISA AND the God King arrived at the village before Siris returned, so it seemed she would have to wait to discover the meaning of his cryptic message.

She walked among the people, returning their waves, but inside feeling a traitor. Not for what she’d done, but because of how much she enjoyed what she had become. Even food tasted better. She had slept soundly last night, and had woken wonderfully refreshed

At one point during the trip, she’d burned herself on the rope of the rigging. The wound had healed of its own avail within the hour. This was marvelous, this was wonderful.

And at the end of it all, guilty though she felt, at least one thing good came of it. She found that, finally, her grudge against Siris – and what he was – evaporated. She could not blame him for being Deathless.

If she got her way, everyone would know this wondrous state eventually. Now that she’d embraced it, she realized that was the only true answer to this mess.

Make everyone Deathless. Then, Raidriar’s arguments held no weight. Then, she would never need to feel guilty again. She hastened to the command center to tell Lux of the plan.

She made it halfway before the fire began to rain down from the heavens.


EXPLOSIONS ON the horizon.

“No!” Siris screamed. He ran, frantic, helpless – his horse dead on the steppes somewhere behind him. He’d long since outpaced Terr and TEL.

The ground shook. Light flashed in the evening darkness. Again and again.

Destruction.

Death.

He’d failed.

The rebellion was no more.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN



SIRIS WALKED, head down, among the blasted ruins of what had once been the rebellion headquarters. Burned bodies lay scattered like fallen branches. The command center was a smoldering heap, not a single wall still standing.

The Worker had known. All along, he’d known. He’d sent machines across the sky to deliver death. Siris fell to his knees near where small bodies lay in a depression, where they’d tried to hide. The children . . . the children he’d played with . . .

The Dark Self stirred. Furious, it wanted to lash out. Siris screamed, stabbing the Infinity Blade down into the ground.

Why? Why hadn’t the people fled? He’d sent messages telling them that the Worker knew where they were! What had gone wrong?

Coughing.

Siris stumbled to his feet, pulling the Blade out of the ground and waving it in the darkness. Burning fires gave light to the armored figure who approached. The figure had lost most of its breastplate and was missing one arm, which ended in a burned stump.

Siris recognized that armor. But more so, there were few beings who could walk so confidently after taking such terrible wounds.

“Raidriar,” Siris said, lowering his sword. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be back at the hideout?”

In a rare show of trust, the God King removed his helm, ripping it free with his remaining hand. The Dark Self thrashed inside of Siris. It recognized that face, identical to that of the Soulless he had killed shortly before.

“What happened?” Raidriar asked, dropping his helm, then wiping sweat from his brow.

“He knew,” Siris said. “At the palace, your Soulless . . . he was researching the Worker’s plots. He had found them, pulled them up on his screen. The latest was a strike that had been ordered on this very location.”

The God King cursed, stumbling closer. Siris tightened his grip on the Infinity Blade.

“Why are you here?” Siris demanded. What was going on? Isa? She would be back at the hideout, fortunately.

“Why am I here?” Raidriar said. “You summoned me!”

“I tried to send everyone away! My message was an alarm!”

“So he beat us in that, too,” Raidriar said. “He intercepted your communication, twisted it. Damn.” Raidriar glanced at the Infinity Blade, a veiled hunger in his eyes, but he didn’t reach for it. He walked over to a rise of broken earth and slumped down, back to it, breathing out.

Siris turned about, the numb feeling of loss returning. In his mind’s eye, he remembered these people cheering him, saluting him, looking upon him with awe. He’d failed them miserably.

“At least you have it,” Raidriar said. “The Weapon.”

Siris turned the Infinity Blade over in his hand. “He knew I was coming for it, Raidriar. The Worker . . . he knew everything. He even knew that your Soulless was infiltrating his systems.” Siris laughed, feeling as mad as the copy he’d just faced, and settled down on the ground. He pulled out a small mirror – a datapad – and tossed it to Raidriar.

The God King caught it with his single hand. He grunted, reading the illuminated screen.

Siris lay back, staring up at the sky. The only direction he could look and not see corpses.

He could still smell them burning, though. The Dark Self shook and growled. Siris barely kept it contained.

“He was wrong,” the God King said.

Siris sat up. “What do you mean? He knew about this, about the rebellion. He knew about Lux, had lists of our officers . . .”

“He thought you’d have an entire force of Deathless by now,” Raidriar said, holding up the pad. “It says here that this attack was in part meant to clog your rebirthing chamber, force you to spend weeks rebuilding your Deathless army.”

“A minor error,” Siris said with a sigh. “He was right about everything else.”

“It is important,” Raidriar said softly. “It means that he can be wrong.” He rubbed his finger along the outside of the mirror, as if it were some holy relic. “Unless this is some way of manipulating us as well. How to know . . . ?”

Siris groaned, climbing to his feet.

“And what are you going to do?” Raidriar asked.

“Keep looking for survivors.”

“You won’t find any,” Raidriar said, then pointed. “Though if you were going to, they’d probably be that direction. Near Isa’s body.”

Siris froze. “She came with you?” he screamed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

The God King didn’t reply.

No!

Siris came to himself cradling the burned corpse. He didn’t remember running to it. It was her. Oh . . . it was her. Enough remained of her face for him to make it out.

Raidriar walked up, armor clinking.

Siris hissed, the Dark Self squirming free. He dropped Isa and scrambled for Raidriar, picking up a blackened stone in his hand, the only weapon he could find.

Raidriar leveled the Infinity Blade, which he’d been carrying behind his back. “You dropped something.”

Siris stopped short. Even the Dark Self cowered.

Raidriar held its point to Siris’s chest for a moment, then lowered it. “I am going to go and kill him,” Raidriar said, voice cold. “The Worker goes too far. This wholesale slaughter of my people . . . the indifference he shows for rule. I will cut his heart from him with the Weapon he himself forged.”

“I get first chance at him,” Siris hissed.

“Have you ever fought the Worker?”

“Does it matter?” Siris demanded, stepping forward, clutching his rock.

“Get hold of yourself, Ausar,” Raidriar spat.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was . . .” Siris gasped in breath. “You held off. To bring me pain.”

Raidriar glanced at Isa’s corpse. “I held off to get information. I didn’t want you running off until I knew what had happened. Now . . . forgetting to tell you that she was Deathless . . . that I did to bring you pain.”

“Deathless?” Siris stammered. He spun on Isa’s body.

“She stepped into the Pinnacle of Sanctification before we came here,” Raidriar said. “Her body is new to being Deathless, however. It will take more time than usual to recover. The first times are hard, as you may remember – but no, of course. You do not.”

Siris knelt again beside Isa. Could it be true? Was Raidriar lying?

If Isa was Deathless . . .

Siris looked up, coming back to himself. The Dark Self retreated – it wasn’t pushed down, it merely retreated to smolder like the burning buildings around him. To plot.

Oh, how I hate you, he thought, looking at Raidriar.

Now in control of himself, the Dark Self and his own self working together, he remembered the little precaution he’d put into place. He tapped his finger against his palm and activated the teleportation ring.

The Infinity Blade vanished from Raidriar’s hand, instead appearing in Siris’s own grip.

“Ah, clever,” Raidriar said. “I should have inspected it for a teleportation ring.” He nodded. “This is good. If I should fall while fighting the Worker, you can summon the Weapon back to you, so he cannot have it. It might even save my life, depriving him of the Blade, should the duel turn against me.”

“You really think I’m just going to let you leave with it?” Siris snapped.

“Do you remember fighting him?” Raidriar challenged. “Do you know his favored blows, his techniques? He is a master duelist. He is a master at everything. Have you fought him, Ausar? Do you know how to defeat him?”

Siris hesitated.

“I have,” Raidriar said, soft, dangerous. “I have bested him in sparring matches, on occasion. You will give me that weapon for the same reason that I sent you to fight my Soulless – because in this case, I have the better chance of winning. And we cannot risk losing.”

“We could go together,” Siris said.

“With one Infinity Blade? It would be pointless. I will go. It is my place. And you . . . you should take that one back to the hideout and place her in the rebirthing chamber. She has no buds yet to return to, and the chamber will ease the difficulty of her first recovery. Her Q.I.P. remains in a fragile state. She will need you near her when she wakes.”

Siris took a deep breath. All around him burned the tattered remnants of Isa’s rebellion. If she still lived . . .

The Dark Self had an idea.

With a sigh, Siris rammed the Infinity Blade into the smoldering earth, then gestured.

Raidriar snatched it up eagerly. “It is well you brought the information you did. We know where to find the Worker, now. I will strike as soon as my arm is regrown.” He raised the Blade. “It feels so right in my hand . . .” He started to walk away.

Then he hesitated, turning back in the night. “Our ship is at the hidden dock in the southern cove. Use it. See to your woman. I . . . I will see the Worker dead. I will chop off his head and set it up on a pole, for all to revile. This has been a long time coming, for me, Ausar. Farewell. Try not to let anyone kill you while we are apart. I prefer to think of that as my personal privilege.”

He stalked out into the night.

The Dark Self stirred, pleased.

I don’t mind if the Worker kills you, Raidriar, Siris thought, gingerly lifting Isa’s body. I’ve had my fill of it. I just want you gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN



IT DID not take Raidriar long to heal. He inspected his new arm as he rode his horse to the Worker’s bunker, a monolithic stone tower in the middle of a wide expanse of desert.

He was almost to the end. He stopped as he drew near, then unpacked something he’d tied to the back of the animal. Armor, his real armor, finished by Eves, who had met him on the way. The man had gathered several loyal Devoted out from under the Worker’s heel, and Raidriar had sent them on plots even Ausar didn’t know about.

Raidriar put on his armor. He would not go into this particular battle poorly equipped.

Curiously, he saw two daerils guarding the way in. Unusual for the Worker, who normally eschewed daerils in favor of Deathless guards. It seemed something just for Raidriar, a nod to the way he personally had always done things.

That made him even more angry. The Worker knew he was coming, and had set these beings out here for him to fight, as Raidriar himself had always done with the Sacrifice who came to fight him. A subtle message that the Worker knew he’d be coming.

Raidriar growled and stepped up to engage the first beast.


SIRIS ROCKED in the cabin of the ship, wood groaning softly, waves crashing softly outside. Isa lay wrapped in a sheet on her bed, lashed in place. She was healing, slowly. He’d met back up with TEL and Terr, who now guarded his door.

Siris raised a mirror before himself and engaged it. He was immediately rewarded with an image of the God King riding up to the Worker’s stronghold.

The remote viewing device. Siris had slipped it onto the Infinity Blade’s handle. Now, he would watch for the perfect chance. For there was one thing that had been on the Soulless’s datapad that he’d deleted. One thing that Raidriar hadn’t seen and didn’t know.

The Dark Self hummed softly. No, Siris hummed softly, in satisfaction.

The perfect trap.


RAIDRIAR KICKED a daeril off his sword. The dying creature tumbled down the stairs and slammed against the door at the bottom, throwing it open.

Breathing hard inside his helmet, Raidriar followed it down. The deadmind in his armor chirped a quiet bird whistle in his ear, informing him of a minor injection to boost his stamina. Oddly, as he stepped over the corpse, he found himself struggling to remember the name of the bird that had once made that song. One of his favorites, from long ago . . .

It was gone from his mind, lost to the thousands upon thousands of years it had been since his father had left him on that slab of metal. The bird species itself had been extinct for nearly as long, part of the price paid to bring about the era of the gods.

Raidriar entered the chamber. A throne room, after Deathless ways – but then again, also different. Where the Worker sat at the end, lofty and imposing, was a throne for certain. His seat lay on a large dais high above the room, with a long set of steps leading up to it.

But images hovered around him, screens projected into the air – a contrast to the throne. All those screens, powered by deadminds. Images tugged at the edges of Raidriar’s memory. Visions of another time, visions of his youth, when he had been called Jori. The person he had once been.

Huge windows rimmed the upper edges of the room, showing the desert vista outside. The Worker worked in his hub of light, helm on the chair beside him, looking so . . . human, with the light of the screen reflecting in his eyes. He looked old. Not ancient, but certainly middle-aged, with creases in his skin, silver in his hair.

Raidriar hated how human they all looked, once the masks were gone.

“Worker!” he bellowed, crossing the floor of the chamber.

The Worker didn’t look at him.

“I have escaped your prison, Worker! I am here for you.”

“You are such an interesting specimen, Raidriar,” the Worker said, still watching his screens. He spoke softly, as he often did, though his voice always seemed to carry. That voice . . . it pierced. “Do you realize that? You are like a rare butterfly, whose patterns take generations of breeding to perfect.”

“I am not here for word games, Ancient,” Raidriar spat. “You will face me. We will end this.” He raised the Infinity Blade, pointing it at his ancient enemy. The man once named Galath, the one who had given him immortality.

The Worker smiled. “You see? That is what makes you so wonderful! The others, they never really bought in. It’s an act to them. When they put aside the masks, they put aside the god. But you . . . you believe.” He hesitated. “Of course, it does make you damn pretentious on occasion.”

The Worker raised a hand, and a column of light split the ground. A pillar rose, releasing a series of daerils.

“More minions?” Raidriar demanded. “This is pointless. Face me yourself and know my fury!”

“Do you listen to yourself, Raidriar?” the Worker said, amused. “You really are something special.” He turned back to his screens, tapping away at a set of figures. Most of the screens were in motion. Deadminds executing commands. He was working on something big. Something important.

Raidriar didn’t have time to look over much before engaging the first of the daerils. The fight was not terribly difficult. Yes, the creature had been created well, but it could not match the God King, fully armored, with the Infinity Blade in his hands. He dispatched the beast, leaving it to twitch its final moments on the floor.

“A waste,” Raidriar said, shaking his head. “Such a fine creation, slain for no reason.”

“I agree,” the Worker said from above. “It will be a shame to see you dead.”

Raidriar snorted. “Do not play your games with me, Worker. Your life is mine, and I have come to claim it.”

“You see?” the Worker said, tapping on his screen, then moving to the next one. “There you go again. Once in a while, I create something truly remarkable. Thank you for reminding me of that.”

“I am not one of your pawns, Worker.”

The man on the throne above hesitated, then turned. “You really do believe that, don’t you, Raidriar?”

“It is the truth.”

The Worker grinned broadly. “Wonderful.”

“I came to you as a child,” Raidriar said. “I am not some daeril plaything, crafted from the flayed souls of men. I am–”

“–your doom,” the Worker said. “Yes, yes.”

Raidriar hesitated. That had actually been what he’d been about to say. A–

“–fortuitous guess on the Worker’s part,” the Worker said.

Can he . . . read my mind somehow?

“No, I can’t read your mind, Raidriar,” the Worker said. “Let’s just say I’ve known a few versions of your personality subtype before.”

“I was born, not created!”

“Oh?” the Worker asked. “And there was no interference between your birth and now? No changes made to your Q.I.P. to grant . . . say . . . functional immortality?”

Control, Raidriar told himself. Retain control. He is playing with you. Ausar imprisoned him for a thousand years in the Vault of Tears. If he could read everyone as perfectly as he pretends, that would never have happened.

“Well, fight your way past my guardians,” the Worker said, going back to his typing on the projected screens. “Then we’ll be on with our climactic final duel, or whatever you want to call it.”

So, what trap would the Worker have laid for him? Raidriar approached the throne hesitantly, noting a figure sitting beside the stone stairwell that led to the throne.

The figure wore gold armor, helm on the steps beside him. The face looked . . . beleaguered. A mop of brown hair, too-thin features.

Eyes that had seen eternity.

“Ashimar,” Raidriar said, using the being’s Deathless name. Once, this creature had been known by another name, however. An ancient name. Jarred.

“Jori,” Ashimar replied. He sounded tired.

“So,” Raidriar said, stopping before the steps. “He pits us against each other. Another of his games.”

Ashimar nodded.

“I have not forgotten the kindness you showed me,” Raidriar said, “when I was young. The stories of my father you shared, memories I needed before I truly came to my strength. For that, I will spare you. Lay down your weapon and leave this place.”

“He’s only going to take one with him,” Ashimar said softly, rising. “A seed, he calls it. Me or you. His favorite pets. Everything else will be . . . gone.”

“What are you talking about?” Raidriar snapped.

“You can’t fight him, Jori,” Ashimar said, sighing. “He knows too much. Everything we do is but a string he has pulled.”

“And this?” Raidriar asked, raising the Infinity Blade toward the steps and throne. “I hold the only weapon that can destroy him. It was a mistake to give this back. He is capable of making mistakes.”

Ashimar looked up, meeting Raidriar’s eyes. Then the Deathless stood and pulled a sword from its sheath at his side.

An Infinity Blade.


ANOTHER INFINITY Blade.

Outside Siris’s cabin, the sky rumbled with distant thunder. The ship rocked back and forth, and he smiled. Then, he took out the small ring of teleportation. He could summon the Infinity Blade back in a heartbeat, leaving Raidriar unarmed and facing a weapon that could kill him for good.

The perfect betrayal. Vengeance, at long last. A conclusion to what he had been built to do, what he had been trained to do.

Defeat the God King.

He moved to activate the ring . . . but found himself hesitating.

On the screen, the fight began.


RAIDRIAR WAS not stunned to see a new Infinity Blade. He could not afford to be stunned. Lesser beings let surprises destroy them. Not him.

It could only mean one of three things. Ashimar’s Blade was a fake. Raidriar’s Blade was a fake.

Or the Worker had created more Infinity Blades.

You are a fool, Worker, he thought. A duel would solve this problem. He would need a Deathless soul to feed to his Blade to test it, and that meant he could no longer allow Ashimar to leave. A pity.

“I am sorry, old friend,” Raidriar said, entering a dueling stance.

“I am not,” Ashimar said, putting on his helm. “I can’t let myself die. Curse me, even still, I cling to life . . . I can barely remember the old days. The good days.”

The old days, good days? Perhaps putting poor Ashimar down would be an act of mercy.

Raidriar attacked.

Ashimar stood on the steps leading up to the throne’s dais, and that high ground should have given him the advantage. But his attacks were sluggish. Raidriar easily forced him up the stairs, using his shield like a bludgeon, keeping his opponent’s Infinity Blade away. He did not plan to test its authenticity with his own blood.


SIRIS WATCHED the fight.

Inside of him, another fight raged, more powerful. So strong, he could barely focus on the screen.

Betray Raidriar or not?

This monster had killed him hundreds of times. Siris could have the perfect revenge now. If he took the Blade at just the right moment, in the instant when Raidriar tried to parry, this enemy’s weapon would find Raidriar’s soul.

It would end him forever. Raidriar deserved it. He truly did.

And yet . . .

He didn’t kill me when he had the chance, Siris thought. He believes in honor. He’s a tyrant, a murderer. But he’s an honest one.

Could Siris really do this? The Dark Self wanted to lash out, wanted to see his ancient foe defeated.

The man that Siris had become fought back, clinging to his morality by his fingernails.


RAIDRIAR FORCED Ashimar up the last few steps and onto the dais above, then came in like a tempest. Raidriar threw aside his shield and attacked with overhand blows in rapid succession.

Ashimar was Deathless, and he was skilled, but Raidriar was among the best. Only one man had beaten him in recent times.

Ashimar floundered, dropping to the floor of the dais. He lunged in a desperate maneuver.

Raidriar moved to batter the weapon aside.


SWEAT SLICK on his brow, Siris watched.

The moment came.

And to his sorrow, to his shame, he activated the button and betrayed the God King.

Nothing happened.

CHAPTER NINETEEN



SOMETHING CHIRPED in Raidriar’s helm – the chip that Ausar had embedded into his weapon, the one that would have teleported it away, had been activated. Raidriar had removed it, of course.

So, you decided betray me after all, Raidriar thought, surprised as he continued his swing and battered aside Ashimar’s weapon.

Raidriar’s blow threw the weapon from Ashimar’s hand. It clanged to the floor of the dais, skidding away, toward where the Worker sat, engaged by his screens.

Raidriar’s enemy slumped down, defeated.

Ah, Ausar, Raidriar thought. That move with the teleportation ring was clever. Just not clever enough. He activated his armor’s personal interference shield, as he knew that Siris would be watching remotely. That would inhibit the image, make it so that his old friend could no longer watch.

Raidriar should be angry at Ausar. Instead, he was impressed. That would have been a wonderful betrayal. Treachery worthy of the highest Deathless.

He still hated Ausar, of course. Deeply. But that didn’t matter right now. Secure that Ausar could no longer watch, he knelt and grabbed Ashimar by the throat, lifting him.

“Thank . . . you . . .” Ashimar whispered.

Raidriar nodded solemnly. “Goodbye, my friend.”

And with that he slammed the Infinity Blade into Ashimar’s chest. The proper flash of light followed, indicating the severing of the immortal bond, the end of a life thought endless. When Raidriar dropped the husk he knew that the Weapon he held was no fake.


SIRIS SAT back, his mirror greyed out.

He’d been outmaneuvered. Not just politically and technologically, but morally as well.

What have I done? he thought.

The Dark Self seethed.

I hate you, Siris realized. Even if you make me strong, I hate you. Far more than I hate him.

There was nothing to be done about it. For now, he admitted defeat.

He was the Dark Self.


RAIDRIAR PICKED up Ashimar’s weapon. It was, to Raidriar’s eyes, identical to the Infinity Blade he held.

“Why?” he called to the Worker, who was still tapping on the screens projected around his throne. Raidriar was only a few steps away by now.

“To occupy them,” he said. “And to make certain I could replicate the device.”

“Foolish,” Raidriar said, striding forward. “That gives them a chance to destroy you. You ignore too much. Even if I do not defeat you, someone will. They will raise empires to rival you.”

The Worker turned to him, then slowly shook his head. “You still haven’t figured it out, I see.”

Raidriar prowled forward, glancing at the screens around the Worker, which were now close enough for him to make out. Schematics of the world, each continent outlined, and . . . satellites in the skies? Launch trajectories?

Another war? No . . . this was more extensive than that.

“Did you know,” the Worker said conversationally, “that there are actually two ways to kill a Deathless? I’ve known of the first for ages. It requires leaving the soul with no place to hide, no body to restore.”

“Impossible,” Raidriar said. “Even if you destroyed all of the rebirthing chambers, the soul would return to the original body and heal it.”

“Not if there is nothing left to heal.”

Raidriar saw it, then. Full orbital bombardment. Laying waste to the entire world, reducing it to ash and slag. Extinction of all life.

“No . . .” Raidriar whispered.

“I hate to do it,” the Worker said. “I will have to live offworld for centuries while the planet recovers. But occasionally, a resurrection is needed – a cleansing. What did you once tell me?” The Worker smiled. “That men must be cast down on occasion, or they will grow too high-minded? That goes for Deathless too.”

“Not this,” Raidriar said, looking at one of the screens with dread. “Everyone . . . everything. You go too far, Galath! I will not allow this. These are my people, and I am their king. I will not allow–”

“Allow?” the Worker said, amused. “Who are you to allow anything, Jori?”

Raidriar turned to face him, then fell into a dueling stance, wary for traps. Before him, screens displayed a multitude of plots. Images of the satellites that would vaporize all life. Views of the various places where Deathless fought one another, struggling for supremacy, never realizing that their creator had already deemed them obsolete.

He fought down the terrible, nauseating horror of it. He was a king, and he would not allow emotion to cloud what he needed to do.

He would stop this. And then, each and every Deathless on the planet would owe Raidriar their lives. He would make certain they knew of that debt.

“Still assuming you’re going to be able to kill me, Raidriar?” the Worker said, sounding amused. He stood up, passing through his screens, to a small workstation near the throne. The desk was scattered with bits of ancient technology.

He paid Raidriar little heed, taking out a datapod and laying it on his desk, opening up files.

Raidriar vaguely remembered datapods. His father had used one to transfer information between electronic surfaces. He’d carried his life about on the thing. Raidriar had once been very jealous of that datapod his father carried in his watch. And then the man had given up immortality for him.

Be a king, son . . .

“But, of course,” the Worker said, “I know that you aren’t yet convinced. I know you too well to assume otherwise.” He sighed. “Well then, come on over. I believe I owe you a duel.”

Raidriar growled, striding up to the monster. The Worker tapped a few times on his desk screen. “This really is a waste of time.”

Raidriar stabbed him through the chest with the Infinity Blade.

“Are you quite done?” the Worker asked, the Weapon still poking through his chest. “I have a lot I need to be doing.”

No flash of light. No disjunction of the Q.I.P.

“It’s a fake after all?” Raidriar whispered.

“Hardly,” the Worker said. “Do you really think I would build a weapon that could destroy me?” He pinched the Blade between two fingers, then grunted and pulled himself off it. There was no blood.

Raidriar raised the Weapon for another swing.

“What are you going to do?” the Worker asked, settling down into the chair at his workstation. “Chop off my head? When you parted with Ausar, didn’t you say something about that? That you’d display my severed head for all to regard? You realize I’d grow my head back faster than you could hack it off.”

Raidriar hesitated.

“Right now, you’re wondering if I have bugged you, to listen in on things you’ve been saying.” The Worker paused. “No. And now you’re wondering if Ausar contacted me after you left – you wonder if he was a spy all along. Neither is true, Jori. The truth is simply that I know you, and can pick out exactly what you’ll say. I know everything.”

“Lies.”

“So stubborn. Tell me, how is your backup kingdom?”

He can’t possibly know . . .

“You know, the one you have stashed away in South Alithenia somewhere. I haven’t bothered to look, but I’d guess . . . where, Eropima? A small kingdom, dedicated only to you – though they’d call you by a different name. None of your Devoted know of it, of course. You only travel there by being reborn, so nobody can trace you. You keep it just in case, a place to rebuild. And you’ve never spoken of it to a soul, nor have you written down knowledge of it.”

Raidriar stumbled backward.

“Shall I keep going?” the Worker asked. “Before you came here, you sent your Devoted in three different directions. One to recover the Infinity Blade – which I assume you have set up to be teleported away in case you should fall. Another you sent on a fool’s errand to disguise your trail and confuse your enemies. The third you sent to assassinate the other clone of you that I created as backup to rule your kingdom.”

Shock. Surprise. He was a god! He should not be so predictable. So readable. How . . .

The Worker leaned forward. “I know everything, Jori. When you were but a child, I had already lived ten thousand lives.” He smiled. “Go ahead, ask me a question. Anything you wish.”

A question. “How . . .” Raidriar gulped. Then it came to him. “If you are all-powerful, then how did you let yourself get trapped in a prison for a thousand years?”

The Worker tapped a finger on the screen of his desk. Then he leaped to his feet, an Infinity Blade appearing in his fist in a flash of light. He struck at Raidriar, who barely got his weapon up in time to defend.

“It was Ausar, wasn’t it?” Raidriar demanded, backing away.

“He is an . . . anomaly,” the Worker growled.

Ausar.

The data they’d recovered . . . it showed that the Worker had projected that Ausar would create a Deathless army, but he had not. The Worker did not know about their hideout, otherwise he would have bombed that too. Ausar had chosen to put the resurrection chamber there, instead of elsewhere.

“You may have lived thousands of lives,” Raidriar said, dancing backward, “but you don’t know everything. You merely know almost everything. You didn’t expect his betrayal.”

“I didn’t expect the timing of it,” the Worker said, advancing.

“He frightens you. You cannot anticipate him like you do others. Instead of imprisoning him, you made a child of him, wiping his memories. Or did he do that to himself? Either way, he transformed during those years – transformed into something far more dangerous than what he had been. Someone different from anything you’d seen before.”

The Worker attacked.

Raidriar fought.

But he was outmatched.

The Worker was good, so good, with the sword. Before him, Raidriar finally saw himself as he was – a babe. He danced around his enemy, moving backward across the dais, trying to fight. He was one of the most skilled swordsmen who had ever lived, but the Worker . . . the Worker had no trouble.

Raidriar fought anyway. He fought with everything he had, and in the end, none of it mattered – for the Worker had battered the Weapon from Raidriar’s hand. It flew away, scraping against the floor.

The Worker slammed his shoulder against Raidriar, who fell back against the workstation behind him. The Worker grabbed his helm and pulled it free, tossing it away. Then, the creature leveled the Infinity Blade at Raidriar, the point touching his nose.

“I,” the Worker said, “am true divinity. I am the father of nations, peoples, and gods. Everything that exists on this planet exists by my forbearance. I am the thing you merely pretend to be. And you can never defeat me.”

Raidriar believed him. Looking into the depths of this creature’s eyes, he understood. Everything he had done or tried, the man he had once known as Galath could anticipate.

“Now,” the Worker said, lowering his Blade. “Now you understand, and now you take your place. You are mine, and you always have been. We are going to cleanse this planet and start anew. I need a few to serve beneath me. You will take this opportunity, and you will savor it, Raidriar. Tell me of my mercy. Beg me to let you live.”

The words bubbled to his lips, but he did not speak them. So many people would die . . .

What were they to him? Worms? Insects? He should take this chance, as he always had. The chance to live, to struggle on another day. Perhaps get his vengeance.

The world is a broken, ruined place . . . Whispers from another time. Another world. Make it better. Make it better . . .

Be a king, son.

He looked up and met the Worker’s eyes. “I cannot defeat you,” Raidriar whispered. “I don’t have to. For I know who can.”

He twisted, grabbing something on the desk. The datapod, filled with the Worker’s plans and mysteries. Then, as the Worker roared, he turned and threw himself off the dais with the throne, tumbling past the steps.

He cradled the datapod, grunting as his body crashed to the ground, bones breaking. The Worker shouted, scrambling around the desk, running for the steps.

He should have jumped.

Raidriar disengaged his armor’s disruption field.


THE MIRROR on the table in Siris’s cabin winked on.

Siris looked up, straightening from his slumped posture. Raidriar lay chest-down on the shiny, metallic floor of the Worker’s base. His helm had been removed, and he was bleeding from the corner of one lip.

“Ausar,” Raidriar said, fiddling with something in his gauntlets. “I’m going to send you something. I have my own teleportation ring. You need to find it.”

He held something before him. A datapod he struggled to attach the ring to.

“I cannot explain,” Raidriar said. “I haven’t the time. All is soon to be lost. Everything. You have to stop him. You can stop him.”

Siris picked up the mirror. Behind Raidriar, he could make out someone barreling down a set of steps. The Worker, carrying an Infinity Blade.

The datapod flashed in Raidriar’s hands.

The Worker bellowed in rage.

“I trust you can find it,” Raidriar whispered. “Think, and you will know where it is. Get there before him – it has information you will need to beat him. Once you have it, you will need to find him – he will go into hiding after this, as is his way.

“Know that he can be wrong, Ausar. Even about me. He thought I’d betray my people, leave them to die. But he was wrong, so wrong. I will do my duty.” Raidriar smiled. “For I am a king.”


THE WORKER ran up, howling.

Raidriar turned on him and smiled.

The Worker rammed his Infinity Blade down into Raidriar’s chest, yelling obscenities.

Raidriar’s last emotion was pleasure. He could surprise the creature after all.

A king.

He looked upward, smiling toward the light, as the Blade sent him into the infinite.

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