“It’s almost here.” A tired-looking old man leaned back in a chair that was covered in gold and jewels that “throne” would have seemed a better word if there weren’t three other similar chairs grouped in a tight circle. His clothing was similarly overdone, clearly stitched together with gold thread and covered in enough jewels that it was probably thoroughly uncomfortable to wear. He and his throne were both covered in many different stones, but by far the majority were red, most likely rubies. Some of the rubies set into the throne were gigantic; the largest was easily the size of a softball.
“You’re certain it will work?” A woman in similarly uncomfortable-looking clothing sat in the only other occupied throne. She was easily as old as the man and her clothing was just as ornate. The only real difference was that where his jewels focused on rubies, hers seemed to be mostly sapphires.
The other two thrones were clear and green respectively, but they were both empty. The rest of the room wasn’t in focus; it clearly wasn’t important to the vision other than a general impression of over-the-top sumptuousness.
The man smiled. “There’s no point in getting nervous now, Borghild. It’s far too late for that. But yes, it will work as long as the timing is right, and who is better than us at timing?”
Borghild sighed. “I just can’t believe it’s finally time to escape, much less that we can bring so many with us. It’s too bad about the other Memories …” She trailed off and made a slight wave towards the two empty thrones.
“Their sacrifice is necessary to shield us from the Void. You know they’d do the same.” The man spoke with a slight smile on his face. Rissa couldn’t feel his emotions in the vision, but his expression said that he was satisfied, even pleased, with how things turned out.
Borghild snorted and shook her head. Unlike the man, she looked stressed and a little unhappy. “They were never going to capture you, Eternus. I still don’t understand why they even tried; we all know you’re Tiers above us and at least three steps ahead. They should have worked with you, not against you, then they’d be able to cross universes with us. I can’t wait until we’re in the new world. Without anyone else, we won’t have to make these hard choices; we can guide everyone to the right decisions.”
“Of course we will.” Eternus’s face didn’t reveal his thoughts about Borghild’s statements; the slight smile on his face didn’t change at all. “How close are we? Does the sacrifice need to start now?”
Borghild waved a hand in front of herself and focused on a vision Rissa couldn’t see. “Not quite yet. The ritual is complete but it hasn’t made its way to the system’s outskirts yet, much less to Eadsyt.”
Eternus smiled at that and closed his eyes for a moment. For a moment, he looked every moment of his age, however old that was. He was just an old man, tired after a long day.
Then he opened his eyes again. A frown appeared. “I’m sorry, Borghild.”
“Sorry? For what?” Borghild sounded confused. A moment later, an extremely sharp emptiness left Eternus’s hand and removed Borghild’s head from her body.
“I wanted to take you with me, but the future is not so kind. The Final Reaper’s ritual is more successful than I expected; I will need your power as well to steal control over it. Perhaps we should not have pushed him quite so hard. I am sorry; I hoped to avoid it until I could no more.” Eternus apologized to the dead body, then closed his eyes again.
He never reopened them. Instead, his body turned into dust and disappeared in a flash of light.
Rissa couldn’t tell if he’d escaped or been killed, but she also didn’t care. What she did care about was that the vision splintered as Eternus vanished. This time, she didn’t allow the Dreaming Tree to randomly select another vision. They needed a shared framework. The one she’d ended up with while they were on Lyka seemed like a good choice, so she pushed it at the Dreaming Tree.
She could feel when Serenity supported her image. He was unskilled but powerful, which was all she needed here; she could direct the power he provided easily enough, since he didn’t fight her over it.
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Serenity punched the tree branch under his feet. It was wide and strong, yet it shivered at the strength of his blow. It wasn’t what he really wanted to punch anyway. He wanted to punch Eternus.
Perhaps we should not have pushed him quite so hard.
The words echoed in Serenity’s mind. Just how much of his time as the Final Reaper was influenced by Eternus? He’d never know, but it almost certainly explained some things if someone who could see the future wanted him pushed but not quite killed. If they wanted to push him into his eventual retaliation.
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He’d been herded. He hated that.
Worse, they’d already tried to herd him again. Eternus was the name the group of people who worked for the Mimir used for their group. They’d even said they were from Eadsyt. The connection wasn’t hard to make, at least not with Aide pointing out the similar names.
That had to be what the attempts on Rissa’s life were about: trying to push him back into doing what he’d done in the other timeline. It wouldn’t work, but if they kept trying they could make things seriously inconvenient. Worse, they could attempt to isolate Serenity and Rissa by attacking indirectly. If they’d herded the Final Reaper, they’d already shown they could do that.
No, no they hadn’t. This was long before that scene happened. Eternus wasn’t the corrupt, powerful old man from the vision. Serenity had no doubt that he was both corrupt and powerful, but he had to be far less powerful than the man who manipulated the Final Reaper. If he were even close to as powerful, he wouldn’t need to send a small group of incompetents to try to kill Rissa; he’d know what was going on well enough to put good people there.
Of course, someone powerful and skilled enough to deal with the Final Reaper also wouldn’t try to manipulate Serenity into becoming the Final Reaper by killing Rissa. That simply wouldn’t work on him.
He knew how to bring people back from death, after all, especially if they died in front of him. It was neither easy nor fast, but he could manage it. His resurrections wouldn’t be the sad half-life of a body raised with no mind; he could raise a fully undead being who held their own spirit, then go through the effort of returning them properly to life when he had the resources.
Come to think of it, he could probably get the dryads of Berinath to do the hard part of restoring Life to one he’d raised into Death. They’d probably argue with him about which part was the hard part, but that was the best type of division of labor.
That thought brought a slight smile to Serenity’s lips and he realized that he wasn’t as pissed at Eternus as he had been a moment ago. The man had to be stopped before he settled on a different way to kill everyone and steal the power of their deaths to do something. In this case, the “something” seemed to be “take me and a number of my followers somewhere I can rule them without interference,” but in truth Serenity didn’t care what it was. The method was unacceptable; the end didn’t matter.
“Not yet. Give him a moment.” That was Rissa’s voice. Serenity didn’t look up.
“That’s the third time you’ve said that.” Elder Jinsa’s voice. “If he can’t handle the Dream, it’s better to get him out quickly, not wait for him to adjust. It only gets worse.”
Serenity took a deep breath. He needed to concentrate on what was happening now, not on what might have happened in a future that never would be. He could mark Eternus down as someone to deal with; he and his Mimir were already on Serenity’s bad boy list anyway.
He’d have to remember that the other Mimir might or might not be involved. They might well not even be the same people now as the ones from the vision; Borghild, at least, seemed far more innocent than he’d expect a schemer to be.
“It’s not the Dream that’s the problem. Well, it’s not the fact that it is a vision; he’s angry about what he saw.” Rissa was clearly tiptoeing around the events that connected Serenity to the vision. He appreciated that; his connection to the Final Reaper was still obscure and he wanted to keep it that way.
“She’s right,” Serenity rumbled. His voice seemed deeper and more resonant here than it was in the real world. He managed to not get distracted by it, but it was definitely strange. “I may have a bit of a grudge against that man.”
Rissa barked a quick laugh.
Serenity straightened and actually took a good look at his surroundings. They weren’t the same as his previous trip to the Timestream on Lyka; yes, there were giant branches and yes it was a tree, but that was really all that was similar. On Lyka, the arrangement looked reasonable but made no real sense when you thought about it; a single tree branch didn’t grow from multiple trunks simultaneously.
This time, the branch Serenity, Rissa, and Elder Jinsa stood on was clearly supported by only one of the several trunks that surrounded them. It also looked far more like bark than the inside of a wooden plank; Serenity hadn’t even made that connection when he was on Lyka, but in comparison it was now obvious. This was far more like the trees of Serenity Settlement, even if it clearly wasn’t the same variety of tree. Not that Serenity knew what either variety actually was; he just knew that the leaves were shaped differently and this bark was far paler and more like paper.
More than that, Serenity could actually see the sky. It wasn’t the leafy green mass he’d seen on Lyka; instead, it was a star-filled expanse like the sky seen from Berinath. No dome was visible, but Serenity could make out part of the planet above them and it was clearly Tzintkra.
The sight was so obvious that he thought for a moment that he felt Tzintkra smile at him. That was just his imagination, wasn’t it? As far as Serenity knew, Tzintkra didn’t have a Time affinity.
“A bit of a grudge? Who is he?” Elder Jinsa sounded confused. “That didn’t look like a minor grudge.”
“His name was Eternus. Eternus is the name of the leader of the Mimir. With that and the connection to Norn-twisted fate in that prophecy, I’m guessing that isn’t a coincidence, which means he’s the person who keeps trying to have Rissa killed.” Serenity paused for a moment. Had he left out anything that didn’t implicate him as the Final Reaper?
“That vision … dream, as you call it … is from a future that isn’t going to happen. That means we can guess some things based on it but we can’t count on it.” Rissa stepped over to Serenity and gave him a quick hug. She whispered “not your fault dear,” then relaxed her hold on him while keeping an arm lightly circled around his midsection.