188 (II)

Decider

Shiv fell silent.

"You doubt it because you're doubting things out of spite, boy. You don't even know what I want. You don't know the deal that your parents made, why you exist, what the point of the Deathless project is. You don't know a great many things. Now you stand before me, raging and raving like an angry child faced with a long-absent father." Udraal pressed his lips together and shrugged. "It's understandable. I, in fact, understand and see your perspective. How could I not? I'm not offended by your anger, your distrust. I'm disappointed in your blindness and your stubbornness earlier. You should have tried a few different strategies instead of grabbing at my soul and letting me burn you with Animancy for so long. By the System, what has Roland been teaching you?"

"Roland didn't teach me anything!" Shiv shouted. "Roland couldn't decide what he wanted to do with me! I spent my entire life as a Pathless! I haven't been Deathless for long! I've been nothing for a long time! Nothing! For most of my life, I was nothing! And now you come back to stick your fingers in my soul? Take my skill? Yeah, no. I'm not taking that shit."

Suddenly, Udraal frowned. A look of confusion came over him. "Wait, Pathless? I haven't checked in for quite a while, but… How long were you Pathless? You were Pathless as a child, up to the point you were ten, but past that, how long?"

Shiv stared at him. "I got my Path a few months ago, at most."

And Udraal's expression turned astonished. "So late… I see. It activated upon your first death." He tapped a finger against his head. "Interesting, interesting. We'll need to talk more about this. But first, tend to Pathbearer Arrow. He is coming around."

A groan came from Adam, and Shiv rushed over and propped his friend up. The Gate Lord's eyes opened, and he found himself staring up at Shiv.

"You alright?" Shiv asked.

Adam felt at his body and realized he wasn't burned anymore. Adam groaned. "I had a terrible dream. I had a dream that the person who engineered the ritual that resulted in my mother's and sister's deaths is here. Oh, bloody hells." Adam looked past Shiv to see Udraal, and his eyes went from fluttering blinks to a hardened glare.

Nearby, other prisoners groaned. Shiv realized then they were burned as well, and winced as he understood what he needed to do. Sullain was still rasping nearby, rolling around on the ground. He could still be used, but he wouldn't survive all the burns. Something felt wrong about transferring all these soul wounds into Sullain, but that something was already past the point of no return. Shiv had already unleashed his power on Sullain, done what Udraal wanted him to.

For a moment, Shiv considered if he could transfer the burns afflicting the other prisoners onto Udraal himself, but something inside him told him that it wasn't likely. Udraal was powerful. Udraal knew Animancy far better than Shiv, and with how he wielded his own Vitality Drain Skill, Shiv didn't think he could touch him at all. Not like this.

"Welcome back, young Lord Arrow," Udraal said flatly. "I do suspect, though, that the reason why Roland didn't train you properly, my Deathless, is because he's still alive." Udraal took a few steps closer, looking down at Adam. "Yes, in fact, I'm sure of it. Did you know that your father has a very brittle psyche? If you had died, and he was left with absolutely no one, something inside him would have crumbled, and he would have made one of two choices with my Deathless. The first would be to murder the child. A possibility, of course, but not a very likely one. He was always too kind."

Udraal gave a smile, as if he was amused by the fact. "The second, and far more likely outcome, is him adopting my Deathless. With that, there would be a most broken family. The man, and the only thing left of his original family. A creature born of violence, bloodshed, trauma, but also his final link to the friends that betrayed him, and to the ones that he lost. This was all but assured to me through Psychology."

A cold feeling gripped Shiv as Udraal recounted his plan. Adam was supposed to die. Adam was supposed to die, and that was supposed to unbalance Roland enough that he took Shiv as a sort of adopted son. Shiv couldn't imagine such a life. Couldn't imagine Roland taking him in after everything else that had happened.

But as he considered it, his Psycho-Cartography spoke up. It's possible. We don't know Roland very well, but he's emotional. And when people get emotional, when people are personally afflicted, they can do all kinds of strange things.

"You absolute monster," Adam gasped with near feral hatred. "You godsdamned fuck!"

Udraal considered the Gate Lord's accusation and angled his head. "I potentially half-agree with that statement. I wouldn't say I'm an absolute monster, but I'm willing to do a great many things to see my goals furthered. I didn't personally intend to hurt your family. It's just that you are born to a powerful lineage. Your father, especially, is a remarkable Pathbearer. He survived a great many things that he shouldn't have. And that is why I chose him. That and the fact that he managed to best one of my vessels. I guided him to the depths of the Abyss afterward. And there he and the rest of the Eclipse Breakers entered the Great One's dreams. Roland was changed. Your mother was somewhat changed. The others..."

Udraal trailed off as he looked at Shiv. "Your parents, however, were lacking in certain ways. They weren't terrible Pathbearers, but they didn't have the... How should I put it? They didn't have it. That special thing that makes you go beyond the limitations of your skills. That special thing that makes you a true struggler. They didn't have it, but I think you do. In fact, I know you do. Anyhow, it's because of that moment that your fates were sealed."

Again, Udraal spoke so casually that Shiv felt a rush of nausea pass through him.

"Life is terribly cruel," Udraal continued. "Don't think I don't understand that. In fact, my parents know that more than I do. I had a mother once." The Abyssal Lord paused, and Shiv caught a flash of pain behind Udraal's eyes. "Well, I still have a mother. She isn't truly lost. She's just been cast out, forgotten, taken from this world by the Great One's dreaming. The System still has records of her. And someday, someday soon," he grinned at Shiv, "I will see her brought back. I have the means now. Right here before me."

And Shiv had a feeling he wasn't going to enjoy this. "You're going to implant her in one of my skills," Shiv said. "You're going to make me bring her back, just like I brought Rose back."

"Correct," Udraal said, "if it is at all possible. I aim to keep my hopes contained. Rose Van Erren was a special case, infused through transplanted skill and ritual. I expected her daughter to be birthed first through you. She was a clean slate, someone without a designated Path and without an accumulation of legends. It should have been an easier rebirth when you developed a skill suited for her. But it seems that your Path has surprised me once more. She really should be back by now… Her absence is troubling."

The Abyssal Lord sighed as he began to stroll around. He walked back toward the center of the lobby and placed a hand on his Animancy standard. "There are a great many things I'm learning right now. I can't confess to saying... I can't claim to be omniscient or omnipotent. In fact, I'm very fallible."

He placed something within his banner and then turned away. "So far, Deathless, you're proving to be more of a surprise than anything else. I've had a great many expectations about you and theoretical guesses as to how you might turn out, but now, standing here looking at you, you are outside the context of my expectations. Part of that is pleasing, and another part is very frustrating. It's the loss of control, but also the discovery of things I didn't think of before. Like that skill you keep using on me, the one that makes me forget you exist for a few seconds when your body is destroyed. What is that called?"

Shiv didn't tell him.

Udraal stared at him for a moment, and then his eyes flashed a faint blue. "Outside Context Problem, is it? No, that was the previous evolution. What's the current one called?"

Shiv still didn't answer.

Udraal shook his head. "I will find out eventually. You're just making this frustrating. Regardless, now that you've pulled most of your burns out of your body, we can continue with our education. Sullain? Vicar, are you still alive?" Udraal called aloud.

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Sullain shook on the ground, and from squeaking lungs, he muttered prayer after prayer. "Great One, Great One, rise. Great One, rise from your slumber and save me. Great One, have I not been a worthwhile servant? Have I not been faithful?"

"He's still alive," Udraal said dryly. "That means we can keep using him as a subject. So, have at it." He gestured toward Shiv. "Make sure the rest of your little fellowship is restored. It's good practice for you."

Shiv glared at Udraal for a long moment, but the Abyssal Lord just looked back at him with a flat expression. "My boy, you've already broken him. You've already condemned him to a forthcoming death. You shattered his greatest skill, left him crippled, broken at the spirit, and now you've moved all your burns into him. What more can you possibly do to remedy this situation? Are you going to pull the burns back out? Are you going to reassume that ownership over these many wounds?"

Shiv knew Udraal was right about that fact, but still, going along with the Abyssal Lord felt wrong. And that made the Deathless take another option.

"No. You heal them instead," Shiv snapped.

Udraal blinked. "You want me to fix them?" He gestured at the other prisoners.

"I'm telling you to do it," Shiv said without any hint of shame. "You are going to fix them, and I want you to do it without bargaining or rejecting it. You owe me that much."

"I owe you?" Udraal replied with a near cackle. "I owe you. I..."

"Yes," Shiv said with a building growl of anger. "You made me. I didn't ask to be. I didn't ask for you to make me with an atrocity. Adam didn't ask you to murder his mother and sister. Roland didn't ask you to break him. No one asked for this. It was your doing. So right now, you're going to do me a favor. A free one. Fix them. Or I end this experiment right now."

Shiv immediately cast out some of his Vitae—and promptly started shattering himself into puffs of mana with his Shapeless Tides. He kept going without slowing, breaking more and more of himself as death drew close.

Udraal fell silent for a long moment, and he folded his arms. He briefly considered being petulant. Shiv could read it on his face as well. But then, finally, he threw his hands out by his sides and shrugged. "Very well. I will educate you directly. You're being very, very immature about this. What pointless brinksmanship—pointed at me, no less. How unreasonable."

"I'm being perfectly unreasonable, asshole," Shiv shot back. "I'm just my own man. Not someone you can goad around. Especially after what you did."

"What I did," Udraal muttered, "is save you. You don't seem to be fixating on that. No. Always the long-distant past. The dark and troubled atrocities that were made, never the wonders I've created. Everyone's always so ungrateful, caring nothing about my urge to see the System struck down and utopia to be created."

Udraal waved a hand, and a splashing wave of Animancy emanated from him. The orcs down the hall immediately fled. Several teleported. The rest blurred as they turned into a burst of motion. Gone was a bolt of lightning as she escaped. She tore down the hall along with most of the orcs as the Animancy splashed over Candles and Five, neither in any condition to run.

A pang of pain washed through Shiv as he remembered Bonk. Bonk had been burned too, but Bonk had died. The orc didn't get a grand finale. No final blaze of glory. One moment, he was pulling Shiv away from the carnage; the next, Veronica had spat a command, and the mass of the orc was split in two. For all the System cared about having people struggle, for having people overcome challenges, it gave no quarter, no hint of remorse when the moment came.

Udraal shaped Animancy spells of such staggering complexity that Shiv could barely decipher them. Adam's eyes widened as well, and Shiv found the Gate Lord taking a step back. A flood of different patterns swirled out from Udraal like a twisting chain. Soon, those twisting chains became even larger spell symbols, and the spell symbols expanded into strange patchworks of geometry.

They crashed down around the two burned prisoners. The Animancy slid along the walls, coiling and expanding until it was wide enough to encompass the entire hallway. Complicated circuits and interconnected symbols conveyed the Abyssal Lord's intent. The air was so dense with mana, so choked with magical expression, that Shiv found it hard to breathe.

Udraal, meanwhile, had a bored look on his face. With a final, casual gesture, the spell collapsed inward, and a wave of Animancy crashed over the two prisoners. Their burns were wrenched free from their bodies, and they faded into flaking pieces of ash. When the Animancy settled, both Five and Candles were entirely restored.

"By the Scarred One's Tongue," Kura gasped down the hall. She was staring, peeking out from between the massive bodies of a few orcs pressed against the far wall, and the grayskins, usually clamoring for violence, were silent as well, as if wary of Udraal, unwilling to risk drawing his attention.

Five shook and groaned. As the wolf-man rolled over, he looked up and saw Shiv and Adam staring at him. Then his gaze shifted slightly to the right, where he saw Udraal Thann looking at him through half-closed eyes. Slowly, Five placed his face back down on the ground, pretending that he didn't see anything at all.

Comparatively, loud laughter came from Candles. He patted himself up and down, the strange, translucent flesh of fire surrounding his bones in the shape of a thin man visible more clearly than ever before. "Ah, the burns are gone! The flames like me again! Yes! Yes!" He pumped his fist in the air. His body came ablaze with a corona of fiery mana once more, and a sweltering heat choked the guard cube. "Yes! Oh, yes! No pain from the burns! Ah, I'm so sorry, babies! I didn't mean what I said earlier!" He started gathering up handfuls of fire with his hands and kissing it, and the absurdity of his antics made Udraal laugh.

"I do like the insane ones," he said. "They're most often the best Pathbearers, or the ones that have the deepest insight into certain things. Sanity is such a detriment sometimes. I wish I was more insane. Anyhow, did you get any of that?" He looked at Shiv, deliberately provoking the Deathless with a large, pearl-white grin.

Shiv stared at Udraal for a long moment. "Fuck, no. I have no idea what you just did, Udraal. You waved your hand, a bunch of shit came out of it, and now they're all fixed."

"Well, you are technically correct," Udraal replied. "I did wave my hand. Animancy did come out of it. Not shit. But yes, that is fundamentally what I did. Now, in detail, I managed to undo the damage marked on their beings. Animancy damage is a strange thing. When you are wounded at the soul and your vitality is compromised, a great many people regard that as fatal or an eternal injury. Not so. It's very easy to mend if you know what you're doing. The problem is, most people don't know what they're doing. Would you like to know what I did?"

Psycho-Cartography: He's making you engage with him. Forcing you to deal with him. He's trying to build rapport. Be wary.

Shiv narrowed his eyes at Udraal. When he finally answered, it was, "Sure. Let's hear you boast."

"It's not a boast. It's part of your education," Udraal said. "Something my father should have already shown you. Something that you're going to need to learn how to do when you compromise this place's mana core."

"When I what?"

Udraal ignored his question for now. "What I did," he began, "is simply transplant a version of the remembered past of their soul onto their present. There was a time when they weren't burned at the soul, when they hadn't sustained narrative damage. I pulled that moment to the present, and it cost them some of their legend. However, fundamentally, anyone can do this. It just takes a great many skills, a convergence of different skills, in fact, to effectively have this Animancy spell be channeled correctly."

"You moved someone's past to their present?" Adam breathed.

"A proper instance of their recorded legend," Udraal corrected. "There is always a previous version of you inside your soul. It is the collective composition of your legend, from all your skills, all that makes up who you are. It is how the System views you. Now, I can reach into all those instances using the skill. I can generate a new instance of your soul, and I can use that to replace all the damage afflicting your current soul. However, the current legends that you've built up will be expended in that case, lost because they will be shed." The words came in a burst of short phrases, trying to elaborate and simplify what he was doing.

Shiv made eye contact with Adam, but the Gate Lord shook his head. He was as lost as Shiv was.

"So, it's a bit like Chronomancy," Shiv suggested. "Like when you're injured but you use Chronomancy to forget your injuries?"

Udraal pressed his lips together. "I suppose that's a crude analogy, and now most analogies are crude, but yes, good enough. Think of it that way. Now, with that crude analogy in mind, you're going to need to use a rudimentary version of this technique so that our escape can be successful."

"Why am I targeting the mana core?" Shiv asked. "I have a way out right now. I can slip past the time loop. I know we're inside a volcano. I don't need to do anything that you say."

Udraal thought about Shiv's response and then shook his head. "No, I disagree. You're going to do this because it's simply the most optimal way for you to escape and stay escaped. You see, I know Veronica Chandler. I know how she reacts to certain things. She will not be scatterbrained or overwhelmed in the aftermath of my recent encounter with her. Instead, she will be spreading out her influence, using all the Ascendants' collective power to hold this prison and to make sure that you don't get far. Even if you do escape." He regarded Shiv for a moment. "How long can you stay out of context?"

Shiv didn't answer.

"Not very long, then. Perhaps a few seconds. That's not going to be enough. Even if you make it beyond the time loop, I suspect that she will have Harlock the Midnight flood this place with darkness. And once he does, that darkness will effectively be a net that you cannot evade, as he will devote all of himself to this task. The dark will spread wider, it will be dense, and the moment it touches you, the other Ascendants will know where you are. They will then bring their Avatars across, and you will face the collective might of the Ruling Council. And this time, they will not be held back. You will not be facing the soft hand of your grandmother."

Both Shiv and Adam flinched back. "What?" they said together.

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