Infinity Blade: Redemption

impostor of some sort, sent by the Worker. “What did you do?”
    “I fled, of course,” she said, blushing. “Left the God King’s lands, found a safe, free city ruled by a lesser Deathless and her cabal. Good taverns in Lastport. I got a job with an information dealer.”
    “That’s what I’d have expected from you. There’s no shame in it.”
    “No honor either,” she said softly, then shrugged. “News kept coming in of Raidriar’s lands, bad news. It seemed to be spreading all over, infecting lands nearby. I thought of you, and what might have happened to you . . . so I started telling stories. About you—the Deathless who had fought for us, the Deathless raised by a human mother. The Deathless who had died trying to free men from tyranny.”
    She glanced at him. “I made up a few doozies, I’m afraid. Really great stuff. You’re the substance of legends now, Siris. I figured you wouldn’t mind, being dead and all.”
    “Not so dead after all.”
    “Yeah. I was shocked when the stories started to come back to me changed. They spread faster than an autumn cough, Siris—people were telling them all across the land. They latched onto the stories about you. They were all waiting for something to believe in.
    “When the stories returned to me, they’d changed to include the promise that you were going to come back. I guess it fits the trope, you know? The returning hero? Nobody from the old stories ever really dies. There’s always another story. It got me thinking. Had I fled too quickly? Had I given up too easily? So I started to dig. I found what had really happened to you. I started to tell stories of your imprisonment too, and people came to me. Well, one thing led to another . . .”
    Ahead, light in the cavern indicated an opening. Indeed, the tunnel ended, revealing a small valley and an entire town nestled between hills. People flooded from log buildings. Barracks, by the look of how many of the men carried swords strapped to their waists.
    There were hundreds of people here. All coming to see Siris, calling that “he” had arrived.
    “You started a rebellion?” Siris asked, looking to Isa. “In my name?”
    “Yeah.”
    “ You started a rebellion!”
    “All right, yes, you don’t have to rub it in.” She grimaced. “Against my better judgment, I took charge. Somebody had to. The idiots were getting themselves strung up, making a ruckus but accomplishing nothing. They needed focus, someone to bring together the malcontents from all the villages, organize them. I figured since I was the fool who started those stories, I should be the one to keep the rebels from getting themselves killed.”
    She looked at the oncoming crowd. “Honestly, they don’t have much in the way of wit.” She hesitated. “Heart though . . . they’ve got a whole lot of that, Siris. That they do.”
    Siris felt a sense of grimness as he watched the people approach, looking at him with awe, hesitance, expectation. Why should this adoration bother him? He’d been raised as the Sacrifice. He was accustomed to notoriety.
    Except . . .
    The Dark Self— it knew what to do with followers.
    Siris had never been trained for leadership. He was a solitary warrior, a Sacrifice sent to fight and to die. The only part of him that knew anything about leading others was that buried part, those instincts he didn’t fully understand.
    It responded to the devotion these rebels showed him.
    “Well done,” he said to Isa, then smiled proudly at those who had come. “Well done.”

DEVIATION
THE FIFTH
    THE RAIN had grown worse by the time Uriel reached his car. It pounded him as he worked to get the door open, briefcase in one hand, umbrella in the other. He climbed in, the car starting on its own. The two-seater vehicle was intended primarily for commuting. Practical. The numbers made sense.
    Adram didn’t drive a practical car. He drove a car that growled when you started it. He bragged about it frequently, talking about how he worked on it himself, tweaking the engine. It didn’t even drive itself—it was old, and considered a classic. That made it exempt from the legislation requiring all cars to have a self-driving mode in case of emergency.
    Uriel’s car didn’t growl as it started. It hummed pleasantly, and Beethoven—“Romance for Violin and Orchestra”—started playing as Uriel shook the umbrella and pulled it into the car.
    “Hello,” the vehicle said in its sterile voice. “Road