Infinity Blade: Redemption

you’d seen before.”
    The Worker attacked.
    Raidriar fought.
    But he was outmatched.
    The Worker was good, so good , with the sword. Before him, Raidriar finally saw himself as he was—a babe. He danced around his enemy, moving backward across the dais, trying to fight. He was one of the most skilled swordsmen who had ever lived, but the Worker . . . the Worker had no trouble.
    Raidriar fought anyway. He fought with everything he had, and in the end, none of it mattered—for the Worker had battered the Weapon from Raidriar’s hand. It flew away, scraping against the floor.
    The Worker slammed his shoulder against Raidriar, who fell back against the workstation behind him. The Worker grabbed his helm and pulled it free, tossing it away. Then, the creature leveled the Infinity Blade at Raidriar, the point touching his nose.
    “I,” the Worker said, “am true divinity. I am the father of nations, peoples, and gods. Everything that exists on this planet exists by my forbearance. I am the thing you merely pretend to be. And you can never defeat me.”
    Raidriar believed him. Looking into the depths of this creature’s eyes, he understood. Everything he had done or tried, the man he had once known as Galath could anticipate.
    “Now,” the Worker said, lowering his Blade. “Now you understand, and now you take your place. You are mine, and you always have been. We are going to cleanse this planet and start anew. I need a few to serve beneath me. You will take this opportunity, and you will savor it, Raidriar. Tell me of my mercy. Beg me to let you live.”
    The words bubbled to his lips, but he did not speak them. So many people would die . . .
    What were they to him? Worms? Insects? He should take this chance, as he always had. The chance to live, to struggle on another day. Perhaps get his vengeance.
    The world is a broken, ruined place . . . Whispers from another time. Another world. Make it better. Make it better . . .
    Be a king, son.
    He looked up and met the Worker’s eyes. “I cannot defeat you,” Raidriar whispered. “I don’t have to. For I know who can.”
    He twisted, grabbing something on the desk. The datapod, filled with the Worker’s plans and mysteries. Then, as the Worker roared, he turned and threw himself off the dais with the throne, tumbling past the steps.
    He cradled the datapod, grunting as his body crashed to the ground, bones breaking. The Worker shouted, scrambling around the desk, running for the steps.
    He should have jumped.
    Raidriar disengaged his armor’s disruption field.
    THE MIRROR on the table in Siris’s cabin winked on.
    Siris looked up, straightening from his slumped posture. Raidriar lay chest-down on the shiny, metallic floor of the Worker’s base. His helm had been removed, and he was bleeding from the corner of one lip.
    “Ausar,” Raidriar said, fiddling with something in his gauntlets. “I’m going to send you something. I have my own teleportation ring. You need to find it.”
    He held something before him. A datapod he struggled to attach the ring to.
    “I cannot explain,” Raidriar said. “I haven’t the time. All is soon to be lost. Everything. You have to stop him. You can stop him.”
    Siris picked up the mirror. Behind Raidriar, he could make out someone barreling down a set of steps. The Worker, carrying an Infinity Blade.
    The datapod flashed in Raidriar’s hands.
    The Worker bellowed in rage.
    “I trust you can find it,” Raidriar whispered. “Think, and you will know where it is. Get there before him—it has information you will need to beat him. Once you have it, you will need to find him—he will go into hiding after this, as is his way.
    “Know that he can be wrong, Ausar. Even about me. He thought I’d betray my people, leave them to die. But he was wrong, so wrong. I will do my duty.” Raidriar smiled. “For I am a king.”
    THE WORKER ran up, howling.
    Raidriar turned on him and smiled.
    The Worker rammed his Infinity Blade down into Raidriar’s chest, yelling obscenities.
    Raidriar’s last emotion was pleasure. He could surprise the creature after all.
    A king.
    He looked upward, smiling toward the light, as the Blade sent him into the infinite.

EPILOGUE
    “HELL TAKE me,” Siris whispered, rocking in the ship.
    On his mirror, Raidriar died the final death, killed in a flash of light.
    Gone.
    Impossible, Siris thought. Not that Raidriar had died. But that he . . . the creature that Siris had been born