“Selective stupidity. Yes... that sounds like me.” He marched out of the woods, armor clanking, toward a serene pathway of moss and overgrown stones. A daeril guard stood there, slender and lithe.
Siris held his blade up in the posture of one requesting a formal duel. The monster fell into a familiar stance, causing Siris to release a breath of relief. This was familiar. This was where he excelled. He stepped up.
The duel began.
SIRIS YANKED HIS SWORD free of the chest of the last of the guards, dropping the beast like the others before him.
Siris breathed in and out inside his helm for a moment, then stepped from the pathway out into the open gardens. The sky was dark with gloom and melancholy. It had begun to drizzle again.
For a time, he’d managed to forget all else—all but the duels. He cherished that focus. During such moments, he didn’t worry or wonder. He could fight and seek the solace of a spinning blade, a shield turning aside attacks.
The open-sided building was just ahead. It was a thing of beauty, with ornate carvings and subtle colors, set in a garden with bridges spanning ponds and slow streams. He’d never before realized that a building could be a work of art.
“I seek the champion of Saydhi,” Siris called. “I have come for my boon.”
“A little early to be making demands, warrior,” a feminine voice said from the building. He could see someone sitting in the shadows there, in a cushioned chair. A larger figure stood beside the chair. It began moving, stepping out into the dampened sunlight.
The champion was a hulking brute who was almost big enough to be a troll. He might have been human beneath that evil silver mask, or he might have been a daeril. Either way, he wore little armor, leaving his thick chest—bulging with both fat and muscle—bare.
Siris raised his blade. The champion raised a huge machete-like sword and leaped down the steps, shaking the building as he landed.
Time for the real challenge, Siris thought.
The champion started immediately. Three quick blows, forcing Siris back.
Insolent grub, Siris thought. They use our fighting forms, but they are not worthy.
Siris attacked into the creature, moving by instinct, with a barrage of blows.
We shouldn’t give them privileged positions. Raidriar was a fool. Saydhi is a fool. Choosing “champions” like this encourages these grubs to think themselves special.
Siris battered aside the champion’s weapon, then slid the Infinity Blade forward. The skin split like water parting before a slimfish. Siris pushed the blade in up almost to its hilt, then whipped it out, spinning it around back to the ready position.
Pathetic.
The champion collapsed without a grunt, bleeding out on the pathway. Siris brushed past the dying creature.
“Impressive,” said the woman under the pavilion, her voice curious. “Who taught you the Aegis Forms, warrior?”
He could see her better now, a slim woman with a golden mask, hiding her face after the way of the Deathless and their servants. Her armor gleamed with gold and straps of black leather.
“I have come for my boon,” Siris said harshly, trying to control the tempest within him. His calmness was gone. Those Dark Thoughts—they seemed like they’d consume him. “I wish a question answered.”
“Something so... pedestrian?” she said, rising and walking around him in a circle. Inspecting him. “You could be my new champion. You could duel my challengers, slay them, find glory in battle. And, of course, there would be other rewards. Riches, women, power. I treat my champions well.”
“A question.”
“Very well,” she said with a sigh. “What great mystery does your small mind ponder?”
“Where can I find the prison that holds the Worker of Secrets?”
The woman froze, her armor clinking faintly. She looked toward him, eyes narrowing. “Whose child are you? Which immortal’s blood do you have in your veins?”
“Answer my question.”
“The Vault of Tears,” she said. “The place once known as Saranthia. Take a ship due west until you strike land, then climb the mountains to the north. You could find him there.” Her eyes flickered toward Siris’s hand.
The sword. She recognizes it.
“But you won’t,” she added, raising an arm.
Siris raised his shield to parry the knife he assumed would be thrown. Saydhi’s hand instead let loose a jet of fire.
Even behind the shield, the heat was nearly overwhelming. Siris felt as if he was going to suffocate within his armor, and his shield didn’t completely block the flames. The metal on his side grew so hot it scorched his skin. He stumbled backward, turning his head and gasping for fresh air.
The flames stopped and he turned back toward her, his shield steaming. He forced himself to raise his sword and made the sign of one offering a challenge, after the ancient ideal.
She lowered her hand, and he thought he caught a sign of guilt in her posture. She removed a tall, slender pole from its place beside her throne. The weapon had a long, golden blade affixed to one end.
The Deathless held it for a moment, then attacked, giving no other warning.
Siris was ready. He threw himself into the duel, trying to focus despite the Dark Thoughts within, despite the burning at his side.
She was good. Not as good as the God King had been—but Siris was wounded this time. And there were those thoughts, insidious. Driving him to kill, driving him to dominate, to take this woman’s domain as his own.
He rounded her as she swung the polearm out, forcing him to keep his distance. He tried to come in from the side. The thoughts made him miscalculate, and his slice took only a small cut—a spray of blood—from the weak point at her side, where her armor joined.
The sword in his hand began to glow softly. He could almost hear it humming.
Saydhi backed away. She stared at that sword; he could see her eyes behind the mask. “Is it true?” she whispered. There was a tremor to her voice.
Siris attacked, driven by the Dark Thoughts. She raised her polearm in one hand and—ring recharged—turned her other palm at him, letting out a burst of fire.
He should have prepared for it. He knew she had a ring, like the ones he’d used. He had simply grown accustomed to his foes not having that advantage, and his mind was not clear.
The fire took him in the chest. His armor instantly became an oven, his skin searing, then charring. It crusted against the metal intended to protect him. Siris screamed, dropping to his knees, smelling the acrid smell of his own burning flesh.
She chuckled, lowering her hand. “I wonder whom to test the sword on. Raidriar himself, perhaps? He thinks he can saunter in here whenever—”
Siris stopped listening. He activated his ring.
The healing came in a rush of energy and new skin, in the sensation of sudden motion. His heartbeat, like a thundering river. His breathing, in and out, fast as a drumbeat. His hair grew, his fingernails curled in his gauntlets, and the pain vanished. As she stepped to him, he stood—
—and in a fluid motion, he rammed the Infinity Blade up into her chest, right under the breastplate.
She gasped. “No... but you can’t . . .”
He ripped the blade free and stepped back, the sword glowing with a pulsing flash that matched the one coming from Saydhi’s own body. It built, like a concentrated bonfire, then burst out of her in an explosion of light.
She collapsed.
Siris fell to his knees, gasping for breath in the quiet, open-walled building. A few leaves blew past, carrying a chill wind that blew through his faceplate. His armor still felt hot enough to burn him, though not as badly as it had before.
I’ve killed another, he thought. Had her answer about the Worker been truth, or was that a lie?
He stumbled to his feet, then checked on the fallen Deathless, just to be certain. That strike hadn’t been part of the forms; it had been brutal, guttural, and desperate. It had also been effective. No signs of life. Underneath her mask, she was quite pretty. He shook his head, then rose.
He didn’t want to remain too long, in case other Deathless—or guards—came. For now he seemed alone, so he checked her throne, hoping for another mirror that could answer his questions.
He didn’t find one. Behind the throne, however, he did see something that he hadn’t noticed before. A small stone obelisk, with a familiar shape carved into its front.
He froze. There had been one similar to this in the dungeon of the God King’s castle. Placing the Infinity Blade into it, like a key, had opened a pathway to the dungeons. That had made sense—the God King possessed the only Infinity Blade, so using it as a key had been rational, to an extent.
But this obelisk also had the imprint of the Infinity Blade on it, and it was in Saydhi’s gardens.
Suddenly, nothing made sense. What was it really? Did all of the Deathless have these obelisks—and if so, could they open them? He raised a gauntleted hand to his helm.
What is happening? he thought. I’ve been lied to at some point along the way. But when?
He hesitated, then stepped forward, slipping the Infinity Blade into the ‘keyhole’ of the obelisk. It fit perfectly. What would it open? What secrets would he—
The obelisk dropped sharply into the ground.
Reacting quickly, Siris snapped his three fingers together to summon the blade back. Nothing happened.
“Yes,” a voice said speculatively, “I thought you might fall for that.”
Siris spun. The God King stood behind him. The creature wore new armor, shaped somewhat like he’d worn before, almost organic in feel. Siris recognized him, even with the change. The voice... he knew that voice.
Oh, hell.
“You opened the pathway to my dungeons,” the God King said. “I know you killed the prisoners there. Not to mention Archarin, which is a pity. He was a useful servant.” The God King strolled past—Siris could see where he’d come from, a doorway that had risen up from the grass beside the building.
Desperate, Siris snapped his fingers together again.
“That will not work,” the God King noted. “You don’t think we’d create a means of teleportation without creating a means of blocking it as well? The transportation ring will not work as long as the sword is properly shielded.”
The God King prodded at Saydhi’s body with his foot, shaking his head. “I do believe she was planning on taking the sword and betraying me. I suppose you did me a favor by killing her. Pity.”
“I . . .” Siris struggled to make sense of what was happening. The God King was here. “So you do live. TEL. You were using him as a spy?”
“The transgolem?” the God King asked, amused. “No, I’ve been using my ring to listen in. Quite useful, these are. Why do you think I gave them to my minions?”
Siris felt cold.
“Excellent listening devices,” the God King continued. “I’d hand them out to those who pleased me, and so they fought for my favor, never knowing that their prizes were the means by which I took care they wouldn’t betray me.” He looked at Siris. “I never thought one of my foes would actually be able to use them.”