Infinity Blade: Redemption (11 page)

No. Not Dynn at all. Someone laughed behind that helm with a familiar voice.

“You!” Siris said, swiping his sword at the impostor. “What did you do with the man who wore that armor?”

The laughter continued.

That was the God King’s voice.

Oh, hell,
Isa thought, reaching for her sword.

“They were worried about me awakening in here,” the God King said, stepping back from Siris. “With good reason.” He held up a hand as Siris prepared to strike. “As much fun as it would be to kill you again, Ausar—and honestly, I’m already growing nostalgic for the experience—I can’t spare the time to indulge myself. Neither, I believe, can you.”

“Your empire is crumbling, Raidriar.”

“And your little rebellion is doomed. He’s planning something dangerous.”

“Have you figured out his endgame?” Siris asked.

Raidriar shook his head. “No. You?”

“No idea.”

“It’s big,” the God King said. “He tossed aside the Infinity Blade as if it were nothing. Whatever he’s working on, he doesn’t consider you, me, or this empire to be a priority.”

Siris hesitated. “Damn.” Finally, he lowered his sword. “
Damn.
”

Isa looked from one to the other, as they sheathed their swords and walked toward the other side of the room. Almost like old friends.

What
, she thought,
did I just miss?

She gestured for the other guards to secure the chamber. “Keep the door closed,” she ordered, “and see if you can find Dynn. He might be back in the room where we entered the complex.”

Terr ran off immediately. Others stood guard behind the door as Isa closed it. She went over to where the God King and Siris were talking.

“You need me,” Raidriar was saying.

“Hardly,” Siris replied.

“Oh? And the machinery in this chamber? You were going to move it on your own? Have you any knowledge of how to disassemble it, how to set it back up? Do you even know how to
work
it?”

“We could leave it here, make this our base.”

“And stay exactly where the Worker knows he can find you?” The God King left his helm on. He wouldn’t show his face to those he considered his lessers.

“Where is my soldier?” Isa demanded, stepping up next to Siris.

The God King looked her over. “He is alive,” he said. “I realized that Ausar would whine and moan if I killed one of his little rebels, even if they
are
all my subjects.”

“Where?” Isa demanded. “In the room where we entered?”

“Obviously,” the God King said with a wave of the hand. “Calm yourself, child. I barely even harmed him. He didn’t need that hand; he has two, after all.”

“You monster,” Isa said, lunging at him. Siris caught her by the shoulder and pulled her back.

“Honestly,” the God King said, “no need to fuss for something so minor. You mortals break so easily, one would assume you’d be accustomed to it by now.”

“You—” Isa started.

Siris took her by the shoulder. “He’s taunting you, Isa. Don’t rise to it.”

She cut herself off, fuming. If Dynn was dead . . .

“You
do
need me,” the God King said, turning back to Siris. “I brought one of my loyal Devoted, one of the few mortals I allowed to develop expertise in Deathless technology. He can disassemble the machinery here and set it up somewhere else. Some location you choose.”

“Fine,” Siris said. “Very magnanimous of you. And your part in it? What do you gain?”

“We defeat him, and I get my empire back.”

“Like
hell
you do,” Isa spat. “We’re not going to rebel against him, only to give everything back to you.”

“And him?” the God King asked, amused, waving toward Siris. “You think that giving the empire to Ausar here will be any different?”

“He won’t rule.”

“Oh?” the God King asked. “I find that . . . unlikely. He has always loved to rule. He’s never been
good
at it, granted, but he
does
love it. Don’t you, Ausar?”

Siris didn’t reply, his lips a tight line.

“Regardless,” the God King said, “it isn’t important now. First we need to defeat the Worker. Anyone’s rule would be better than the chaos and misery he has sewn since his return. Mortals or not, these are
my
people. I will not abandon them. We can discuss the nature of our . . . alliance later.”

“I don’t trust you, Raidriar,” Siris said.

“I should hope not! You’re a fool, but not
that
big a fool. But you also know that I
will
keep my word. So I vow to you that I won’t move against you, as long as the Worker rules. I will have my man set up this equipment as-is, installing no hidden subroutines, no Q.I.P. alteration algorithms. We will be allies until our common enemy falls.”

Siris met the God King’s eyes.

“You know this to be the right course,” Raidriar said. “Just as I knew you would come here. As soon as I considered, I knew where to find you.”

“Fine,” Siris said, holding out a hand. “But the equipment stays under my control. You swear not to use it without my approval.”

“Fine,” the God King said, sounding annoyed within his helm.

“We need a place the Worker won’t think to look for us,” Siris said. “Do you know of any such place? A place secret even from those who work with us, to preserve a layer of security.”

“Well,” the God King said as they clasped hands. “I do have a few hideouts that were not in my records. You can choose one of many.”

Isa stared at them both, horrified. “This can’t
possibly
be right, Siris,” she said.

The God King looked to her. “Isn’t she the one who killed you with that crossbow bolt, all those months ago?”

“Yes,” Siris said.

“I suppose I have to like her, then. I assume you’ve chosen her to be first.”

“First?” Isa said. “First what?”

“He didn’t tell you?” the God King said, sounding amused. “About this place?”

“What about this place?” Isa asked.

“Raidriar . . .” Siris said.

“First?
First what?
” Isa snapped.

“You were going to have to tell her eventually, Ausar,” the God King said, strolling through the room, nodding toward the rebirthing tub and equipment. “Best to get it over with quickly. Like an execution—one swift chop.”

Siris sighed.

Isa looked to him. “What’s he talking about?” she asked, feeling a chill.

“This isn’t just a rebirthing chamber, Isa,” Siris said. “It’s a Pinnacle of Sanctification.”

“A what?”

“A device for making new Deathless, child,” the God King said, his voice echoing in the metallic room as he turned toward her. “Your hero plans to create his own pantheon of immortals—and you are to be the first of their ranks.”

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.”