Serenity was out at the waterfall trying to clear his head when he was swarmed by a group of people. Serenity wasn’t really prepared for company yet after the annoyance of trying to do something that didn’t make sense; how did emptying your mind help you talk to someone?
Not that he’d even figured out how to do it in the first place. It just didn’t seem to work for him. He could temporarily still his mind by focusing on something, but that was apparently the exact opposite of what Senkovar wanted. He wanted Serenity’s mind to be open and receptive.Serenity had asked if that meant dropping his mental protections. Senkovar seemed surprised then answered no.
Truthfully, it was only five people, but it still felt like a swarm. Serenity shook himself and took a good look at the group while they were still a little ways away.
Death was in the lead; Serenity had the feeling that meant their presence wasn’t coincidence. Even if he was willing to cede the peace of the waterfall to the other group, they were probably there for him instead of the scenery.
One of the other women caught Serenity’s eye; he’d seen that lady with Death a couple of times. He thought her name was Casey or something like that, but he wasn’t certain. Whatever her name was, she was in the rear and seemed to be keeping an eye on the three in the middle. Her utterly neutral expression didn’t give that away, but the way she watched them did.
Were they bringing a problem to him for some reason? Serenity couldn’t think of anything that would make Death bring something to him, but he didn’t yet know this side of her very well. He suspected that Death herself didn’t know “Amaia Black” very well yet. She was still figuring out who she wanted to be.
The three in the middle were vaguely familiar to Serenity; he thought he’d seen them around the Adventurers’ Guild. He looked a little closer and realized that all three looked a little worse for the wear, like they’d been in a difficult dungeon recently. Amana and Casey, however, looked like they were simply out for a stroll in the park.
Maybe there was something wrong with the dungeon the three in the middle had been in and they’d mentioned it to Death? She might well bring people to him over something like that and it would explain everything.
Serenity waited until they were close before he smiled at Death. “Amaia and … Casey, wasn’t it? It’s good to see you.”
“Kaasi,” the lady in the back muttered.
Serenity would have to remember that; he didn’t like calling people things that they didn’t want to be called. “Kaasi, sorry about that. Who are your friends?”
“Arthur, Morgan, and Rolan,” Death stated as she pointed at each in turn. “They’re members of Eternus. Which apparently means more than just a team name, Morgan can explain.”
Serenity had the feeling that this was going to be a long explanation.
Morgan was a short woman with long red hair tied back into a ponytail. She had dirt smudged on her in several places; Serenity wondered if that was from the dungeon. It would be unusual if it was; dungeons usually didn’t bother to make their dirt completely real, so it would vanish as you left.
She took a deep breath and glanced at Death for a moment before looking down. “I’m not from Earth. None of us are. We came through a portal about four years ago.”
Serenity didn’t say anything. He hadn’t expected that, but it wasn’t why they were here. Death wouldn’t bring them to him for that; she’d either kill them or ignore their origin. If Serenity had to bet, he’d have bet firmly on the likelihood that Death would ignore it; she wasn’t an Earthling. There was no particular reason for her to care.
Serenity probably wouldn’t completely ignore it; he wasn’t sure what he’d do with the information. It mostly depended on whether or not he thought they were a threat. Yes, they were technically illegal immigrants, but he honestly didn’t care about that.
Many countries, including his own, were trying to limit travel by portal the same way they’d limited all other types of border crossings, but Serenity wasn’t going to do anything about that. He’d set up the portals to require a local authority to set locations for transit. As far as he was concerned, that was all he should do about it.
After a moment, Morgan continued. “We came from Eadsyt. I doubt you know it, it’s a long way from here. We … I believed in Eternus’s mission, to bring about the best possible future. For Eternity. I don’t think that’s what they want, now. They don’t care about the best possible future for anyone but themselves. The Mimir, the Wise Ones, that’s all they care about. They don’t even care about the rest of Eternus!”
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That clearly meant something to Morgan, but it meant very little to Serenity. He could tell she was angry, but it wasn’t a new story. People were self-interested. He didn’t know Morgan well enough to respond the way he would have to Rissa, so he kept his mouth shut instead of saying something snarky about “the best possible future” being defined as the best future for the person who was talking about it.
“I wouldn’t have cared if they sent me here to die for a worthy cause; that was what I lived for, but they lied! The path they wanted led to the Memories of Eternus ruling over a dead world! That is not a good future! Worse, when the future changed they didn’t even look to see what trying to put it back on track would do, as if nothing had changed!And I just believed them like a fool!” Morgan’s voice dropped from her loud shout to a horse whisper. “I’d never thought that they might be wrong, that they might not have looked. Why would I? They were always right. Always. And then I lost my sword, you took it from me.”
Took her sword from her? Combined with “trying to put the future back on track,” that led Serenity to a memory he hadn’t thought about in quite a while. Back when he was on Aeon, Rissa looked into possible futures by heading to the Timestream and brought Serenity along because she was afraid someone might attack her. While they were there, someone did indeed attack her: a woman with a sword who wanted to restore the future that “should have been” with Rissa’s death.
If he remembered correctly, the Timestream manifested as giant trees and branches, where heading “up” a trunk led to a possible future. It was a mental construct, probably, a way for the human mind to visualize something it wasn’t prepared to see. Regardless of what it was, though, he’d fought the woman (if you could even call that a fight) and kicked her sword off the branch they were on before the woman fled.
Serenity frowned. Hadn’t she been tall and muscular? The details were a little fuzzy, probably because the Timestream wasn’t real. “You don’t look much like her.”
Morgan had been staring intently at Serenity the whole time. At his words, she dropped her gaze to her feet. “I wouldn’t. Valkyries take on the form of their Sword Maiden in the Timestream. You took my sword from me. I am a Valkyrie no longer.”
Serenity wondered if their form was the only thing a Valkyrie got from their “Sword Maiden.” It was possible that Morgan hadn’t ever thought about things because she wasn’t supposed to and her sword stopped her. At the same time, it was not necessary to assume mind control to explain lack of thinking for yourself; when you were told something often enough, it started to seem real regardless of the truth of the matter. Getting people to do what you wanted by telling them it was for their own good worked, even when it was obviously not true. For something that was hard to check, it was easy to believe that few would spend the effort when they thought someone else already had.
“I am merely a Vala now, nearly worthless. I was sent to Earth as punishment, to help one who is still a Valkyrie to see a way to kill -” Morgan stopped short and swallowed nervously. “To kill your …”
“To kill Rissa.” Serenity didn’t see any point in beating around the bush on that. It was better to know the truth and deal with it than to pretend it didn’t exist.
He’d fought off an attack on Rissa just under two weeks earlier and despite his attempt to keep all of the attackers alive, he’d gotten exactly nothing useful from them. They weren’t willing to talk and he wasn’t willing to push beyond his boundaries. Russ might have been willing to read their minds if he asked, but that seemed unnecessary with how utterly incompetent they were at fighting; instead, he’d told Rissa that as long as she was close enough to him, she was wearing his armor-self, then had Janice arrange some full-time bodyguards for Rissa. He probably should have done that earlier anyway.
He’d handed the attackers over to Lancaster; as far as he knew, they were still in jail. Lancaster had told him to expect them to get out of attempted homicide; without better evidence than they had, it was hard to prove anything to the level that would result in a murder conviction. Even assault would be difficult since both Rissa and Serenity were unhurt and there were no witnesses or recordings.
Serenity made a note to himself to ask Lancaster to check their citizenship; it might not occur to anyone if he didn’t raise the possibility. Serenity wasn’t normally that worried about a few immigrants, but once they started trying to kill people, Serenity would use any tool he had available.
There was one thing they’d said when they thought he wasn’t listening that raised some questions, however. “Did you tell people where Rissa would be about two weeks ago?”
Morgan seemed to shrink into herself. In a quiet voice that was nearly a whisper, she softly said, “Yes.”
Serenity nodded. “Why?”
Morgan kept her eyes on her feet as she answered, “The Valkyrie told me to give them a time and place where she’d be vulnerable, so I picked a place where she was with you. She wouldn’t have been there if you weren’t there, it was the best I could think of. It couldn’t be public. I told them there was someone with her but I didn’t say who.”
Serenity nodded, pleasantly surprised. He’d expected her to have simply picked a time; to know that she’d picked it because he was there instead of despite his presence made her contrition seem a little more real.
Of course, that assumed she told the truth; Serenity might have her talk to Russ later. For now, though, he’d assume she told the truth and had actually managed to break free of the cult she’d belonged to. The fact that she and two others were approaching him with the tale was distinct evidence in favor of that interpretation anyway.
“Why did she have you predict it instead of doing it herself?” Serenity could believe it; people delegated things they shouldn’t all the time and this sounded like something that wasn’t easy to find out. Even so, he wanted to know if there was a deeper reason than not realizing Morgan was a blade that had twisted in her wielder’s grasp.
Morgan shrugged. “She can’t. Her precognition manifests only as short flashes in battle. It makes her deadly in a fight but she can’t answer questions about times longer than a second or two from the present.”