He did manage to find an image of himself, supposedly created only one week before. A powerful figure in lean, smooth armor. The face was masked, so it might not matter if the fake was a true Soulless or not, but it was his voice that accompanied the image.
“My loyal Devoted,” the recording said, “cower and give awe. My prophecy is at hand, and my enemies work to deceive you. Stay alert and serve your lord.”
It did sound like him, but it grandstanded too much. The Worker liked theatrics, but Raidriar despised them. One could know merely by looking at him—seeing the way that he stood, hearing the way he spoke—that he was of the elder Deathless. Trying so hard to emphasize it only made the impostor seem pathetic.
Raidriar shook his head, keeping alert for the arrival of more foes. Daerils would be on their way, those who had been built for fighting. One would not be a problem, but several of them might possibly stand against one of the Deathless.
Raidriar turned to leave the mirrorlike deadmind, but hesitated. What was this? A tidbit of information that he could see, but not manipulate. Prisoners in the dungeons. Not the Soul Cells, but the ordinary cages for mortals. Could it be . . . ?
He could find out nothing more. Well, he would need to pass near those cells in his next task, which would be to reach the central deadmind core of the temple. Perhaps it would be profitable to make a slight detour to investigate.
Before that, however, some clothing was in order.
The armor was useless—no profit in trying to repair it, for he hadn’t the time nor the resources. He pulled some cloth from a cabinet and affixed it about his waist in the form of a simple wrap that hung from waist to knees. It was an appropriate costume for a god, despite its simplicity. The wrap left his chest exposed, displaying a body perfected—it had a certain classical elegance to it.
The cabinet also contained a gold-plated necklace. He picked it up and activated its light-bending properties. The device still worked, and bore no needles or other traps. Likely an item with such simple magic had been beneath the Worker’s notice. Raidriar removed the shawl from his face, then put the necklace around his neck.
He turned to inspect himself in the mirror. The necklace projected an illusion around his head, hiding his divine features. The image was that of a regal green mask with dark eyebrows. Larger than life, the jade mask’s features would not change when he spoke.
No, Ausar had been fond of that style of face. Instead, Raidriar settled on the head of the jackal. The ancient symbol had already been old when he was young.
Knowledge of things like that disturbed him, deep within. Those ancient gods . . . they seemed so similar to Deathless. But Raidriar had been alive when the process to create immortals had been discovered. He remembered it. The cold table. The agony of loss. Coming back for the first time . . .
Too much metal. Even still, he remembered that day because of its metal surfaces, reflecting his face . . . and his tears.
Regardless, the first Deathless had been created near that time, and not before. Of this he was reasonably certain. The ancient gods of before his time could not have been Deathless.
But knowing that did not stop him from wondering anyway.
A tall figure darkened the doorway. Raidriar turned, bringing his stolen sword to the side as the newcomer entered. It was a daeril with hauntingly hollow features and a skeletal ribcage that protruded from its skin. It did not attack immediately, but made the sign of an offered challenge.
Raidriar smiled. His Devoted, so civilized, had shown less honor than this brute. The Worker and Devoted alike undoubtedly hoped the daerils would ignore such protocols, but this thing had been created by Raidriar himself. It was better than that.
“It will be an honor to slay you,” Raidriar said, pointing his sword at the creature. “I do enjoy inspecting my handiwork now and then.”
He stepped into the proper stance, and the contest began.
CHAPTER
SIX
SIRIS RODE in silence.
His horse’s hooves beat a familiar thumping rhythm on the packed earth. A . . . horse. His imprisonment had only been two years. This should not feel so strange for him.
Two years and two thousand lives—many of them very short, a few days at most, a few moments at least. He felt those lives all heaped upon him, like dirt upon a newly buried corpse.
Was he supposed to just move on? Forget the pain, the isolation, the anger? If he had just been Siris, he could almost have done it. But the man he had become in that prison, the Dark Self, was not something so easily forgotten.
“I see you managed to grow more facial hair,” Isa said, riding beside him. “Looks itchy. I’ve always wondered—how do you stuff a beard like that inside a helm? Doesn’t it stick out the breathing holes?”
Siris grunted. They rode through dusty scrubland, broken here and then by plateaus and foothills, with distant mountains behind. He remembered passing through this empty place on his way to the Vault of Tears. It seemed like forever ago.
Isa turned their course along the rim of a large plateau. “Typically,” she said, “it is customary for someone who has been rescued in a dramatic way—such as you just were—to fawn over their rescuer. Joyous exultation and all that.”
Siris rode in silence.
“I can say your part, if you want,” Isa suggested.
He shrugged.
“Very well. ‘Gee golly, thanks for saving me, Isa. I sure am happy you done did that.’”
“‘Done did’?” Siris asked, looking up. “‘Gee golly’?”
“Well, I’m not terribly good at accents in your stupid language, but you’re a farmer boy, aren’t you?”
“No. You know what I am.”
“I do—you’re a hero.”
“That’s not what you said when you first found out I was Deathless.”
“I will admit,” Isa said, “I was surprised.”
“Surprised? You were outraged. Betrayed.” He looked away from her, scanning the hilly scrubland. “I understand. I felt the same way.”
“You are a hero, Whiskers,” she said. She sounded like she was trying to convince them both. “At least, that’s how you’re going to act—because that’s what I’ve made of you.”
He looked at her, frowning. She simply smiled, and then guided her horse into a small canyon.
Siris followed, joining her when she eventually dismounted and stepped up to the far wall of the canyon. She pulled back some scrub brush, revealing a small cavern mouth—a tunnel into the rock. Together, they pulled the dead brush away, making a hole wide enough to bring the horses through.
The inside of the cavern reminded him of growing up in the hills outside a city that had been built within an enormous cavern. This was much smaller, but it smelled like home.
How many lives have I lived? he wondered. My home was not truly my home, no more than a crab’s temporary shell is its home. That’s just a skin to be discarded, once outgrown.
They wound through the tunnel, continuing eastward. Isa got out a rod that glowed like a torch when the top was twisted, but it didn’t let off any heat. One of the wonders of the Deathless, he supposed. Had these things been common to him, once? Why did his kind hoard this sort of knowledge? Wouldn’t life be better for everyone, themselves included, if such wondrous items were part of everyday use?
“What did you mean?” Siris asked. “About you having ‘made’ a hero of me?”
Isa continued through the tunnel without answering. Siris followed, growing annoyed, but stopped moving when he heard a noise. It seemed to becoming from inside the wall. He reached for the sword that Isa had given him, but she waved him down.
Stone ground on stone, and a section of the cavern wall slid back. Scout post, Siris realized, noting the holes in the rock he had mistaken for natural depressions. Someone here could send warning—probably by pulling a string or making some sort of noise that would echo in the cavern—if enemies came through the tunnel.
A y
outh peeked out of the scout hole. Though the boy wore a sword strapped at his side, he couldn’t have been older than fourteen. He stood up straight and saluted Isa, then glanced at Siris.
“Is it . . . him?” the boy asked.
Isa nodded.
The boy stood up straighter. “I . . . um . . . oh! Sir! Mr. Deathless, sir! I’m Jam.”
Siris glanced at Isa. Behind him, his horse snorted and tugged against the reins. Jam blushed, then fished out an apple, which he tossed to the floor awkwardly, then saluted again. “Sorry, Mr. Deathless, sir! Grummers likes his apples.”
“I see,” Siris said as the horse crunched the apple.
“I’ll tell the others!” Jam said, then scrambled down the tunnel. He soon started yelling. “He’s here! She found him! He’s here!”
“What did you tell them about me?” Siris demanded of Isa.
“The truth,” Isa said. “With some extra . . . extrapolation.”
“‘Extrapolation’?”