Meanwhile, the lion Remnant cycled its madra and prepared to fight. The full possibilities were fuzzy, but between its fragmented memories and the comprehension of Ozmanthus Arelius, it could think of a few entities who might break in here.
The most likely candidate, by far, was a Sage who had found an entry to this space. That Sage would receive a deadly surprise and become the Remnant’s ticket back to life.
The world was torn back like a curtain, pulled aside by white fingers.
Something about that made the Remnant hesitate, like a long-dormant instinct. But he relaxed when he sensed that the next person who entered was indeed only a Sage.
The blonde woman with streaks of gray in her hair entered the vault and gasped. Tears filled her eyes and she reached out for the man made of lightning.
“Tiberian?” she asked.
The storm-Remnant placed a hand to his head. “You are…Are you my daughter?”
The Sage choked out a laugh through tears. “Listen to you! Your mother would laugh herself sick. Tiberian, I’ve known you before you took your first steps.”
“I…I’m sorry, I…”
“We’ll get you sorted out,” the woman said kindly. “You won’t be what you were, but we can help. I’ll bring you back.”
The lion Remnant attacked.
A wave of golden light overtook half the vault, a Domain meant to seize control of everything. Tiberian moved into a defensive position, but the Sage didn’t protect herself.
She didn’t need to. The golden light crashed into a pale, outstretched palm and was slurped away, like water into a whirlpool.
Fear shook the Remnant at the sight of that hand. Loose bandages had come undone from around the wrist, but it was wrapped from wrist to shoulder in scripted cloth. Where the arm met the shoulder, halfsilver rings restricted the flow of the arm’s power.
The white hand opened and closed experimentally. “Good. It still works.”
The sound of that voice sent more shivers running through the Remnant. Eyes like burning white circles blazed in a vault that suddenly seemed much darker.
“Hello, Shen,” the Void Sage said. “I believe you were holding on to my inheritance.”
Reigan Shen’s Remnant tried to cry, but it had no tears.
33
Mercy sat in the one human-sized chair in the giant’s castle. She smiled pleasantly up at the leader of the Fire Giants, who sat at the end of his own audience hall.
The Scorched King, Sulthurus, stared out through the gaping hole in the wall where his castle had crumbled away. He turned the burned half of his face toward her as he stared into the sunset.
“Our people begged for heavenly aid,” he rumbled, “but you are centuries late.”
What burns a Fire Giant? Mercy asked Dross.
[Oh, good, a question! I was falling asleep listening to the history of his kingdom, though of course I still remember every word. His face was burned when he was buried alive in an avalanche and left for dead. Excruciating for them, or so I hear.]
The King’s beard was living flame on the healthy-looking half of his face, but it did not shine on the burn-scarred half. “The servants of Ruin struck down the Great Bison, whose bounty fed our people. Slowly, we have died out. The few of us that remain are scattered and starving.”
“That’s terrible!” Mercy said.
[If we have to stay here and listen to this any longer, I’m going to take their population down another notch.]
A pair of orange lizard-people scurried up to Sulthurus, bearing baskets of fruits and vegetables. He idly grabbed one and tossed its contents into his mouth, not even chewing. The lizard-people smoldered like hot coals.
One of them refreshed Mercy’s wine, and she thanked it brightly.
“Soon,” the King continued, “we will have what we need to complete the Second Sun. Once it is finished, we will need your assistance no longer. This will be a world of fire, and we will be reborn.”
Mercy didn’t need to glance into the shadows of the future to see how that would turn out.
“I think there might be an even better way!” she said.
Sulthurus’ eyes turned back to her. His hands gripped the arms of his massive chair so tightly that the wood began to splinter. The lizard-men scurried away, shrieking.
“Do not meddle with us now! We have solved our own problems, and we will defeat our own enemies!”
If that were true, Mercy wouldn’t be here.
“I’m here to help you, and I’ll do everything I can,” Mercy said earnestly. “I’m going to look around, and if I see that the Second Sun is the best solution for you, I’ll help you launch it into the sky myself!”
She meant it, too. If somehow she saw that placing a second sun into the sky, scorching the ground and making the land fit for habitation only by Fire Giants, was somehow best for the people of this Iteration, she’d do it!
There was just no chance of that happening.
Sulthurus didn’t seem reassured by her words, but he still leaned back in his chair. “Very well. I’ll give you free rein of my domain, but do not speak to the Servants of Ruin. They will feed you only lies.”
“Really? What are they going to say?” Mercy listened to his side of the story.
It was good preparation for the next day, when she went to visit the Servants of Ruin.
They didn’t call themselves that, of course. They called themselves the Ulethian Empire, and their leader was Bardolph, High Priest of Reason.
He met Mercy in a bustling laboratory of hissing steam and clanking machines. She looked around eagerly as she entered; it reminded her of a Soulsmith’s foundry, only nothing here radiated spiritual power.
Except Bardolph himself, who was a mechanical skeleton of copper and steel. A flame burned green in a furnace at his chest; that was his soul, bound to animate the entire frame.
He was just as passionate about his problems as Sulthurus had been. His voice was mechanical, as though produced by an interaction of metal rather than flesh. Which was probably the case.
“I have sent out a call for assistance because I wish to consult with otherworldly minds,” the High Priest said. “It is an honor to confirm the existence of outside worlds. Tell me, what was your world like?”
“I love my world! I’ll tell you all about it, but first I’d like to understand this one. Your people are being struck down by a disease, am I right?”
Bardolph waved a copper hand in annoyance and turned to look out a window. His tower overlooked a haze-shrouded city, with smog visibly pumping out of factories everywhere she looked. “The disease is not a concern. We will find a cure. The barbarians are the problem about which I intend to consult you. They are an alliance of creatures that have turned to the magic of flame to extend their lives: Fire Giants, salamanders, the ember-folk, and so on. They are crazed and violent, you see. Their magic burns away their rational minds, and they can only destroy.”
[I like this metal skeleton,] Dross said. [Let’s trust him.]
“That sounds terrible,” Mercy murmured. She was spreading her spiritual sense all over the city. Animated metal servitors outnumbered living humans almost three to one, and the lifelines of most people were weak.
“I do have a solution of my own. We were on the verge of rolling it out for battlefield testing next week.” Bardolph reached out to pull a lever, and a…creature…was lowered from the ceiling.
Chains rattled as they carried the thing down. It thrashed against its restraints and snarled as it saw Mercy.
Bardolph straightened himself up proudly. “The first of our Flesh-warped Soldiers. Cheap to produce, and it adds any organic material it consumes to its own body. When it consumes enough, it will split off into a duplicate Soldier. Each successive generation is weaker, but in concept…an infinite army!”
The Flesh-warped Soldier was a vaguely humanoid lump of purplish flesh. It twisted and oozed like it was partially made of clay, or possibly like it had been formed from the Bleeding Phoenix.