She said nothing, so he finished washing and started dressing. Isa sat in silence, staring forward again. This entire experience seemed to have disturbed her greatly. She wasn’t the only one.
As he was stomping on the boots, Isa slid something across the floor toward him. A sword. “I took it from one of the champions you killed,” she said.
Siris affixed the sword’s sheath to his belt.
“You said your ancestors fought the God King,” Isa said. “That your father, your grandfather, went to fight and died. Have you considered that you didn’t have a father or a grandfather? At least, if you did, they’ve been dead for thousands upon thousands of years?”
“But... the Sacrifice . . .”
She shrugged. “Something in there is a lie. Something big. You weren’t born, Siris.”
“I grew up as a child. I remember it.”
“I... I don’t know how to explain that.”
Questions for another time. “I need armor.”
“You might be able to take some off one of the fallen daerils,” Isa said. “Saydhi’s guards. I think the God King’s minions left them behind.”
He nodded, then looked to her. He was stunned by the coldness he saw in her eyes.
“Isa . . .” he said.
“You’re one of them, Siris,” she said softly. “I just... I’m having trouble with this. One of them, Siris. Shemsta macorabi natornith na . . .” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered visibly. She looked sick.
Kill her, the Dark Thoughts said. She knows too much about you.
He found himself gripping the side of the reincarnation tub, knuckles white. She was right. He was a monster.
“What will you do?” she asked.
“Before she died, Saydhi answered my question. I know where to find the Worker of Secrets.”
“But he’s your enemy,” she said. “He created a weapon to kill the Deathless. He wanted to overthrow you.”
“I’m not one of them,” Siris said firmly. “I won’t let myself be.”
“And what would you give the Worker?” she asked. “You can’t deliver him the Infinity Blade, now. So why go?
“You wanted freedom, Siris. Well, the God King has his weapon back, and he doesn’t know where to find you—if he even cared to. I think he won’t bother, focusing on Deathless with armies, lands, and influence. You can disappear. You’re free.”
The realization hit him like a clap of thunder.
No expectations. No responsibilities. He could escape, live his life. “Will you come with me?” he found himself asking. He held out his hand.
Isa regarded that hand, then looked up at his eyes. Finally, she turned away.
“Isa . . .” he began again.
“I don’t know what I think, Siris,” she said. “You’re one of them. I know that’s not fair, but... it’s complicated.”
“I’m still me, Isa.”
“Are you?” she asked. “Are you completely?”
Not completely, he admitted. The Dark Thoughts prowled inside of him, stronger than ever. He tried to say otherwise to Isa, but the words wouldn’t come out.
“I came for the Infinity Blade,” she said. “I’m going to follow after it. That’s... that’s where I need to be, right now. I’m sorry.”
She walked toward the exit.
“Isa,” he said.
She paused.
“I release you from your oath.”
“My oath?”
“Not to kill me,” he said. “If when we meet next, I’m not myself... if I’ve become one of them, truly... I want you to do what you need to.”
She stood in the doorway, and he hoped for a wisecrack. Something like, “I’ve killed you once already. Don’t you think I have better things to do?” He smiled.
No jokes came.
“All right,” she said. “It’s a promise.”
He felt cold, and she left him, walking down the hallway. He heard a door open, and faint sunlight shone into the metallic tunnel.
Siris sat down on the steel floor, then lay back.
Everything I’ve been, he thought. Everything that I am... is a lie. If this was true, then he was ancient, a thing no longer truly human.
His mother wasn’t really his mother.
His home wasn’t his real home.
He could remember some things, fragments. Those hadn’t been there before he’d died, but he could see them now. Shadows within his memory.
They showed fragments of a life—a very, very long life—that he’d led.
Sounds came at the doorway. He stood up, hopeful. Isa, returning? He heard a voice, getting closer. Soon he recognized it.
“... bad, bad, bad! Oh dear. Oh dear!” TEL scrambled into the small cavelike room. He wore his stick body and robe, blue gemstone eyes searching about nervously. He froze as he saw Siris, then he looked at the tub and screeched in what sounded like horror.
The little golem fell to his knees. “Bad, so bad! Oh, this is bad. I’m supposed to destroy the body! Orders! My commands! You must be reborn as a child! Oh, terrible day!”
“TEL,” Siris said in a commanding voice. “Stop!”
The golem fell silent.
“I am your master, aren’t I,” Siris said. “The Deathless you spy for. It’s me. Before my memories went away, I ordered you to watch over me, didn’t I?”
“Oh, very bad,” the golem said, quivering. “Master, I tried! I tried. I followed her here, but she locked the door! I hid outside for weeks. I could not get small enough to slip in. She locked the door each time she went out. She watched for me. I tried. I promise, I tried.”
“Tell me about my births as a child,” Siris said, feeling numb. Detached from himself.
“I did as commanded, master! Each rebirth, I brought you as a baby to young women, finding you a home so you could grow up from childhood! I altered the woman’s memory to think you her son, and to think herself married to the former Sacrifice—just as you ordered! I made her move to a new town where she would not be known. But this is wrong, so wrong! You... will have memories . . .” The golem hushed. “Terrible memories, master. Terrible, terrible.”
“I know,” Siris said softly. He looked over the sword Isa had found him. It was of good make. He’d need armor; perhaps, as Isa suggested, he could recover some from the fallen Aegis he had killed in the gardens below. If the God King had left the bodies, the armor would be gruesome to recover, but not as gruesome as going into combat without it. If he did that, he’d likely end up . . .
Dead. Hell take me, he thought. That doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? The realization was surreal. Was this how the Deathless felt? If he couldn’t die... so many things no longer had a cost.
The Dark Thoughts within seemed pleased.
“TEL,” he said.
The golem whimpered.
“You will speak to me,” Siris said. “Who was I, before?”
“I am commanded not to speak of that,” TEL said. “Commanded.”
“But I am the one who commanded you. I now rescind that command.”
“Not possible, not possible,” TEL said. “You said I cannot. I will not.”
Siris sighed. Fine. I can work on that one later. “Who was the one who claimed to be my ancestor, the one I killed in the chamber beneath the God King’s palace? Did slaying him truly awaken the Infinity Blade?”
“It did, master.”
“But he wasn’t really my ancestor,” Siris said, frowning. “He couldn’t have been. If this is all true... I have no ancestors. At least, not any that would still be alive.”
“I . . .”
“Speak,” Siris commanded, finding that a voice of authority came to him easily, but unexpectedly.
“He was your son, master,” TEL said, cringing. “Sometimes, you did not fight the God King. Sometimes, some generations, I could not change enough memories to make you the Sacrifice. Other times, you refused to come. That man... he was a child of yours, during a generation when you married, grew old, and had children. That one was chosen as the Sacrifice in your stead. He joined the God King instead of fighting him.”
Siris blinked in surprise. Hell take me... I was married? Had children? How many times? He didn’t remember any of it, not specifics, but he suddenly felt empty.
“Dying and being reborn in one of these vats, rather than as a child,” he said. “It returns my memories?”
“Brings the terrible memories!” TEL said. “Oh, it shouldn’t have happened like this. They must be wiped away, master. If we wipe away your memories each time, have you born as a child, it will keep them away. But now . . .”
“It will grow worse?” he said grimly.
“Much worse,” TEL said softly. “Each rebirth will make it worse. You will become him again, master. HIM.”
So there was a cost. A terrible one. If the Dark Thoughts, the shadow upon his mind, were who he had been, and if dying would return him to that... Well, that seemed worse than dying and not reawakening.
“I’ll be certain not to die again, then,” he said. He hesitated. “But if I do, TEL, you are to bring me here. To be reborn, with my memories.”
“Master,” TEL whispered. “Better to become a child again. Much, much better.”
It was tempting. He could banish all of this. Would that not be freedom? But if that was the case . . .
“Why the Sacrifice, TEL?” he asked.
“There wasn’t one, at first, master,” TEL said. “You’ve always hated Raidriar, and I think you responded to his search for someone to use in activating the Infinity Blade. You went to fight him in one of your generations, and he took note of you, thought you were a child of one of the other Deathless.
“He created the Sacrifice, the entire tradition. And you... you often wanted to go fight him, and when I didn’t make you the Sacrifice, you’d declare yourself to be the one who had to fight him. It seemed best to just start making you, and others around you, think you were the son of the former Sacrifice. People had started to remark on the similarity in your features, you see . . .”
So most of those champions who had fought the God King, they had been Siris. Each time, him again, in a different life. He could just vaguely remember. Coming to the God King’s palace, falling while fighting him. Time and time again. He shivered at those fragments of memories.
The God King didn’t know, Siris thought. He had located what he thought was the bloodline of a Deathless. He must have discovered the truth only recently.
So many lives. So many failures.
But I could run, Siris thought, standing in that quiet steel cavern. His womb. I could be free. I have enough of my old memory to be aware, but not so much that I’m corrupted. It was perfect. A chance to live a life free from obligations.
And if he did that, he left the God King with incredible power. A weapon, finally active, that could kill other Deathless. Siris left his people, his mother, in bondage.