“What did he say about me?” Raidriar asked, curious. “How did he turn you?”
The Devoted squeezed his eyes shut and started whispering a prayer. To Raidriar himself, of course.
“I’m right here,” Raidriar said, shaking the Devoted.
“I will not listen to you, demon. You may wear the form of my master, but you are not him. He warned us of your coming. In his truth I bask, in his name I die . . .”
“A Soulless,” Raidriar guessed. “The Worker has given my crown to a Soulless, has he?”
A Soulless – a copy, a body awakened without the actual Q.I.P. to inhabit it. Such a thing was possible, but creations such as this were unstable, their memories flawed, their personalities erratic.
“I put protocols in place to prevent something like this,” Raidriar said to the Devoted he held. “Why did you not spot the lies? You were trained better than this.”
The Devoted was too busy dying to reply.
Raidriar sighed, dropping the Devoted in frustration. The rest were dead or unconscious, save . . . Yes, the bulky man that still wore Raidriar’s mask. He knelt beside the fallen Devoted, noting the steady rise and fall of his chest. Raidriar pulled the mask free, needles sliding out of the skin of the cheeks and neck. He smelled the poison . . . what was left of it.
Nightdew. It was meant to bring unconsciousness, not death. A temporary way to incapacitate a Deathless. Left too long under the influence of such drugs, the soul would break free to seek a better vessel, but it would work for a time. The Worker would rather not have Raidriar killed and his soul freed to travel to another rebirthing chamber.
He checked the armor next, but as he’d suspected, it was useless. The joints of the elbows and knees had been welded together. If he had stepped into it and allowed it to enclose him with its automatic locking mechanism, he would have been trapped and immobile.
They should not have tried the mask. If he had simply been allowed to put on that armor . . .
He stood, increasingly annoyed, and investigated the deadminds in the room. He was locked out of any important systems. He could access the lesser functions, however – likely he had been left some small amount of control, so as to not arouse his suspicion should he look at his deadminds before putting on his armor. But anytime he tried to change something, the deadmind gave him some kind of excuse, speaking in a flat-toned feminine voice. The excuses were what might have been called “error messages” in ancient days.
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.