“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.