Infinity Blade: Awakening

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.”

“Of course you did,” Siris said. “No lies. You know what I am. You sought out my lineage.”

“Oh, I know what you are,” the God King said, a smile to his voice. “Though I’m more and more certain that you do not. I do wish I knew who sent that transgolem to spy on you.”

A large portion of the ground cracked near the building, and a rectangular chamber rose from beneath. A group of knights in black strode out, surrounding the building. One carried a cloth-wrapped bundle over to the God King, who reached into it and took out the Infinity Blade.

“Thank you for returning this to me,” he said to Siris. “I’ve been worried about its safety.”

“Give me a sword,” Siris said. “Duel me!”

“I think not. You . . . surprised me, last time. I don’t think I’ll put myself into that position again.” The God King stepped down from the building, walking up to Siris, who couldn’t back up any farther without hitting the knights.

“What of honor?” Siris demanded.

“There are some I give honor,” the God King said, voice growing cold. “But not you, Ausar. Never you.”

“What? I fought you with honor. I killed you with honor.”

“And I do believe that was the only time in your awful life you ever showed honor to another.” The God King spoke softly, raising the blade so that the tip touched Siris’s neck.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The God King chuckled. “You really don’t, do you? Ironic. What did you do to yourself, Ausar?” He pulled the blade back to strike.

Siris spotted something moving on the other side of the court. Behind the knights, a dark figure crawled along the top of a low landscaping wall. None of the guards saw her; they were focused on him. She shouldn’t have been there.

Isa. She carried her crossbow.

She lied! Siris thought. It wasn’t that hard to fix after all! He laughed, both in horror and incredulity.

The God King hesitated, sword raised.

Isa lowered her crossbow at the God King’s back.

It won’t work, Siris thought. It won’t kill him. It probably won’t even stop him. It-

She turned the bow fractionally, so it pointed past the God King, and pulled the trigger. The bolt flew, streaking across the garden between the knights.

It hit Siris directly in the forehead.

Chapter Eight

Ausar’s body jerked with a sudden snap, then toppled back to the ground.

The God King froze. That had not been part of his plan. “What is this!” he roared, turning and pointing. A dark figure was already dashing down the pathway out of the gardens. An assassin? Had that bolt been meant for him?

He gestured, and three of his knights charged after the assassin. The God King growled. Saydhi had left her estates far too open by living in gardens like this. It was nearly impossible to create a good, defensible border.

“We leave,” he said, suddenly feeling exposed. Too much had gone wrong lately. He strode toward the lift that would take him down into the undercomplex of Saydhi’s estates.

“What of this, great master?” one of his knights said, kicking at Ausar’s fallen body.

“It is just a husk, now,” the God King said. “You may take the armor as a prize-and recover my ring for me. Burn the body.”

He walked into the lift as his knights obeyed his orders and secured the area. In the near distance, he heard hoofbeats. The assassin had a horse.

The God King was disquieted. An assassination attempt on him was meaningless, though people still tried. He’d deliberately kept the people of this island from knowing the true nature of the Deathless. So long as they thought they could kill him, they’d focus their rebellion on assassins and warriors sent to challenge him.

No, an assassination attempt wasn’t what disquieted him. What worried him, as the lift began to lower, was the chance that the bolt hadn’t been meant for him. That it had been meant for the target it had struck.

If that were the case, someone had known to kill Ausar before the God King could strike with the Infinity Blade. And that meant someone understood far more than they should.

Siris awoke with a deep gasp. It was the uncontrolled gasp of one who had been without breath for too long. The gasp of the dead returning to life.

He sat up with a jerk, something liquid and gel-like sliding from his naked torso. He was sitting a metal tub in a dark room, which was lit only by a few flickering red lights.

He breathed in and out, viscous goo dripping from his chin. He raised a trembling hand to feel his cheek. “Damnation,” he whispered. “I’m one of them.”

“I sat there for hours, that first night,” a voice whispered.

He turned to the side. Isa sat in the corner, on the floor, her knees up and her dark coat spread on the metallic floor around her.

“I watched you,” she said, staring straight ahead. Not at him. Not at anything, really. “I watched your chest go up and down. I sat there, counting to myself. Terrified. You were one of them. I knew it. I’d seen you use one of their rings. I’d heard you claim to have killed the God King with his own sword. You fought like one of them, like a . . . a creature from another time. Too perfect to be completely human. A warrior cannot learn such skill in one lifetime. You fought like a god.”

He blinked, then wiped goo from his face. Hell take me . . . it can’t be true . . .

“And yet,” Isa whispered, “you’d been kind to me. I knew I should strike you down, take the sword. You were lying to me, I thought. Pretending honesty, pretending kindness, spouting all of that nonsense about a Sacrifice. You were making sport of me. Why else would one of the Deathless act as if he were a mortal?”

“I didn’t know,” Siris whispered. “I . . .”

“I was frozen,” she said, growing quieter. “Watching you lie there. What was I to do? Should I act upon the lies I knew you held close, or on the honesty I saw in your eyes? It was not an easy choice. In the depth of the night,