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.