Well… I had not consciously chosen to refuse this death before I seized control of our body from Sesako

But as it has been said, in the end, the soul of a man determines his actions.

After my first death, my soul was that of a coward.

For anyone who thinks that I ought to have chosen differently, that I ought to have allowed myself to be killed to defeat and kill the emperor, and protect Yatamo and the Great Ones, all I can say is…

I am not a saint.

I try to do my best for the world, subject to the fact that I am not a saint.

I wanted to live.

I didn’t want to die.

And this anyways still was not my war.

As the emperor desperately rushed down towards me through the boiling water, I shouted to him, “Stop!”

The shout could be heard by the emperor due to a magical spell that Sesako had learned into perfect muscle memory a long time ago to communicate underwater. It only really worked if the person receiving the message was a powerful enough cultivator that the magic in his mind would automatically be able to start tearing it apart to turn the weird underwater sounds into information.

The emperor stopped.

He stared at my hand that was wreathed in crimson power.

I could bring it down on the rod of this stuff that I was pretty sure was the magical equivalent of uranium.

There was the potential for a very big boom.

Everything was stopped.

I was sitting in boiling water and bathed in a sea of radiation that would eventually kill even a celestial.

“Unless you swear that Takue and I can freely leave this place, I will blow it up.”

He kept staring at my hand.

“Swear to let me live,” I shouted again.

Now he really looked at me. “Well, my dear,” he replied in an urbane voice. “A little bit of cowardice in the end? You are not worthy of Kisiko’s sacrifice. I loved that man. I dearly loved him, and he just died in my arms, and —”

“I am not Sesako. He is no coward.”

“But —”

Eyes widening behind the visor. The emperor sucked in a breath. Tilted his head. Let out a shuddering gust of air.

“That’s how! That’s how you did it! Haha! I wondered — never expected any one to follow my path to become a celestial, and I am glad to see that no one has done so yet, but as for —”

“Swear now! You know I cannot hold here long. I’ll smash it in, it will explode beyond all imaginings, and it will compress the rest of the rods sufficiently as well to blow them up.”

The emperor winced. “I’d dearly rather you did not do that, darling. From whence do you know the secret of this metal?”

“Swear — swear now, or I swear I’ll stop being a damned coward and blow us all to death.”

He studied me. Then he nodded. “Upon my honor, upon my life, and upon my soul, I will freely permit you and the Lady Takue to leave this place, and to go wherever you wish. Neither I, nor those who serve me shall seek to stop you. But I shall place two constraints upon you.”

“What are they?”

“The first is that you shall not share the secrets of the burning metal with any other, including Sesako if your bond is such that you can keep this information from him.”

“Why?”

“My little one, if you truly know the secret, then you know the answer.”

I did. If this really could explode as easily as a nuclear weapon, I did not want to be the one who caused everyone to know about nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, they didn’t have rockets, bombers, or submarines… and mutually assured destruction had possibly been a very good thing by preventing major wars. Or maybe it had been a really bad thing, because the deaths that didn’t happen in possible worlds where World War Three was avoided because of MAD were more than overweighed by the extra deaths that occurred in those possible worlds where a war was fought, because it was fought with nuclear weapons.

The old expected value question: High probability of a small benefit, vs a low probability of a giant cost.

“It shall not be through me that such a horror is released upon the world,” I said at last. “So long as you do not seek to use this directly as a weapon, I shall not speak of it for the next five years — but I’d rather not make an unlimited oath, when I don’t know what I may learn in the future.”

The emperor stared at me. Then he shrugged. “I suppose that’s good enough.

I added. “The simple fact that you are known to study this material itself risks the spreading of such horrible knowledge.”

The emperor shrugged. “I have done my best to maintain these secrets while using them for my ends, but you speak truly — my second request is that we spend ten minutes in conversation before you return to the surface to see what has become of the battle.”

“I agree.”

“Then let us go where the weather is not so balmy. Tut tuts, such damage — the repairs will take days. And I’ll have to do almost all of the work myself. Quite a bother. Sesako’s little smashing was quite a bother.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

We rose from the boiling sea water into the air that was filled thickly with steam.

I could now see Takue again. The telepathic link had broken when I seized control of Sesako, but she glared at me with clear hatred.

“We all would have died!” I shouted at her.

The emperor waved for her to follow us, and she did so without resistance, knowing that he could win any fight with her, even though she had not been able to hear the conversation we had underwater.

We went through one of the great archways and then over the lip of the lead and steel circle that capped this little nuclear reactor in the middle of a fantasy world.

Fuck, that was so much better to not be bathed in a constant stream of radiation.

Well, well, well.

Physics was more similar here than I’d expected.

As soon as the five feet of lead sandwiched with steel was between me and the flood of radiation, everything seemed better and nicer.

Takue closed her eyes, and she drooped against the hot metal wall.

What did we care about heat — we could survive heat, but the radiation here that had felt so intense when we went down, now seemed like nothing.

Both of us would be terribly sick, but that crimson power flooding my body already strengthened me. I’d recover soon enough from the burns, and that terrible ordeal of being close to those active rods. However, while Takue would survive, Sesako’s former mentor would likely be unable to leave her bed for weeks.

An ordinary human would have been instantly killed by that much radiation.

Kisiko’s body lay on a cushion of air, keeping him safe from being burnt by the hot steel. His eyes were closed, his hands were laid over the chest, and while half of the beard had burnt away, the other half of his huge Gandalf beard was still there, bushy and white.

If Sesako or Kisiko had been hit by that van, the van would have died, and he’d have been lightly bruised.

Fuck Sesako.

Fuck him, and fuck Takue for judging me for my cowardice.

And fuck the emperor too.

Yeah, I felt rather guilty.

I stared at Kisiko. A brave man. I was not surprised, though Sesako had been shocked.

The emperor now clapped his hands twice. I noticed that Fitzuki habitually used the same gesture, almost certainly not remembering that he’d taken it from the emperor. “Nine minutes, my friends — Lady Takue, you go up higher, it is still quite dangerous this deep, and you appear quite ill. The troops will not bother you.”

She spat at me in reply.

“As you wish, darling.” The emperor turned back to Kisiko, and staring at him he said, “Tell me of yourself, one who has been merged with Sesako.”

“I hope not — we are not the same. Though we are different versions of the same person. But I certainly do not want to lose who I am to become the same as him, and I know he will hate me henceforth. The second time.”

“You are — wait, where are you from? Or when are you from? Did the Great One tie you two together?”

I realized that I perhaps should not tell this man anything.

I had betrayed Sesako to him, but I did not wish to give him any more aid than absolutely necessary for me to live for another day.

The emperor answered his own question. “Of course, another world. How else? Two souls in one body — no, no, no. That is not how souls work. But one soul with two minds in one body. Of course. And another world — did you have to die? There?”

“I did. I only had an instant where I knew I would die. That’s why I couldn’t do it.”

The emperor’s expression was unimpressed.

“I never joined the army. I never fought. People don’t have to fight where I’m from. I was… the equivalent of an artisan.”

“As he died, I Kisiko said something that referred to you.”

“I wasn’t a warrior. And this isn’t my war. I just… I didn’t want to die again.”

“Darling, neither I, nor the Lady Takue, nor even Sesako are the one who you must convince of this.”

I suddenly understood that deep belief that Kisiko had in the emperor as a man. There was a presence and a charisma to him. And a sense of raw power that emanated from him.

He smiled at me.

A quick gesture and a spell word, and now it was impossible for Takue to hear us, I believed from the feel of it that the spell would even make it impossible for her to read our lips, should that talent be one that she possessed. “So, artisan, how then do you know the secret of the deep metal, did you work with that metal before you died?”

I shook my head. “No, how and why it works was understood in general terms by all educated people in my society.”

His eyes widened. “But how then — if everyone knows how have you not all perished in fire and brimstone?”

“Most people only know in a general sense, and only a few people who work for the government of big countries actually know how to —”

I could not speak any more.

My oath to not share these secrets stopped me.

Perhaps he did not know the details of how to make weapons with them, and I could not say any more. It was clear from the design of his primitive nuclear reactor that his own understanding of uranium was limited.

The emperor smiled. “You cannot speak more. That is good. Though I am curious — but yet… ah. I see. I see. I shall tell you another secret, one that I have told a few people. Yet in telling you, I lay you under an enchantment, such that you cannot share this information with anyone who you do not trust as much as you trust your own self, and they in turn cannot share this information with anyone who they would not cast their life away for. I too am not from this world.”

A grin crossed his face. He nodded a little. “Yes, I see I have surprised you — in that world I am from, the forces of magic ran very differently, in more subtle patterns. It is likely that there is a secret in the deep metal that you do not know, and which is terrible beyond that which even you cbbbbbbbbb you know. I beg you not to seek to know it. You are wise enough to understand the risks that indulging curiosity when it ought to be suppressed can bring upon the world.”

I went pale, and I nodded.

“Then well. So thus is the situation between us. My darling, I see you wish to be off — to see what of the Yatamo army survived that sacrificial battle which you have made worthless. And you want —”

“Sir,” I said sharply. “What Kisiko said. That you can be a better man. You can be a better man.”

“It was certainly you that he spoke of.”

“What did he say?”

The emperor waved the question away.

“I beg you sir; you have enormous scope for action. Even though you are bound by your position, there are still things you can do to help the poor, those you’ve conquered… maybe you can completely fix something, some part of the problems of the world permanently, and —”

“Nothing is permanent.”

“Not even you? They say you do not age at all.”

He laughed. “Is that what they say? I honestly am not sure — some days… Some days I feel old.” A melancholy expression crossed his face. “Like a blizzard time covers every tree. But even if I do not age, that does not mean I am permanent.”

The emperor looked around, up the twisting tunnel that led back towards the sky, and then around at the arches, and the steam billowing out of them. He sighed. “I am not a saint. I have sought to be a good ruler — and when necessary to be a tyrannical ruler. But above all a ruler. I will not become like other men. I will not allow my position to be dissolved into nothing. I will not give up my prerogatives. Though I need to burn the world to save my position.”

“Every man is a universe within himself.”

The emperor looked at me with an unreadable expression, as though that mindless phrase that had been conjured from some depth of my memory actually meant something. As though those words actually mattered. Then he shook his head, “After I have gained my victory — and then the next victories. I’ll work to set things in better order. Kisiko was right, and you are right. We should seek to aid the peasantry to escape that cycle of hunger and poverty. Perhaps… Perhaps a bigger victory can be won. However, I am set on this course, and I shall not waver from it — young man, I beg you not to die, and I beg you not to allow Sesako to kill the both of you in the battles to come. For once I have won, I believe that I shall have use for you in the creation of this better world.”

“Do you not fear that I will become a rival to you? Why don’t you want me dead?”

“Usually when I have killed someone, when there was no need to do so, it was a terrible mistake. You do not have the craving for rulership, and neither does Sesako.” He then sadly looked down at Kisiko. The body floated up to him, and he softly touched the old man’s cheeks. “My child, go in good spirit to whatever gods may exist. I wish for your sake that a life beyond exists — bury him on one of the mountains high in Yatamo, where the dragons live. I’ll give you a week’s ceasefire after the taking of the city to do a proper ceremony for the life of my daughter’s husband. Bury him high, and bury him as a hero, for he was a great souled man!”