Death After Death

When they were on the ground once more, the dragon spent another ten minutes lecturing him about what it was they’d seen. It was informative but also repetitive, and strangely, the dragon insisted that though this cavern would be present in many of the other worlds they’d visited, it would be empty, save perhaps for other beasts. There would be no other gold or signs that a dragon nested there.

While that would have made sense if he hadn’t seen another vast cave full of wealth, he had, so it made the whole thing harder to swallow for Simon. It was only when that was tapering off that Simon finally decided to broach the question again. “How does that relate to Helades’ magic?”

“Do not speak her name to me,” the dragon growled menacingly, showing real hostility for the first time.

Simon hadn’t felt this sort of malice, even in the moments when it was considering eating him when they’d first met. Then, it was more impersonal, like running into a grizzly that was trying to decide whether it was hungry or not. Now, it was definitely personal.

“I apologize,” Simon said swiftly, “I was not aware that you didn’t care for her.”

“This is not her world, and the magics she uses complicates things immensely for those of us who travel between different versions of it,” the dragon grumbled.

“How so?” Simon asked.

“Each time one of her pets, including you, perish, a whole new set of possibilities is grafted onto the world so that they might live again to focus on whatever tangled goal she has conceived of,” Icefang growled. “These new possibilities are out of sync with the ones that occur naturally. Imagine if the river you watched so recently was sometimes iced over and sometimes not because a few winters were spliced in there amidst all the other summers. It makes the ether more turbulent, and it makes navigation that much harder.”

“Isn’t her magic just the same as yours, though?” Simon asked.

“It is entirely different,” the dragon roared, showing signs of real anger again. “The tide of existence flows unerringly from the beginning of time to the end. The whorls and eddies in that stream are all that you and other lesser mortals know, but my perspective is greater. I can see how unnatural it is and how troublesome your kind can be. Sometimes, I think I should purge them entirely, but I do not wish to incur her wrath so directly. I would prefer that her and her ilk stay far away from me.”

“So you have seen other people in the Pit?” Simon asked excitedly. “You’ve spoken to them?”

“Seen? Yes. Spoken to them? No.” the dragon rumbled. “It is poor manners to play with one's food. Normally, I devour all of those in league with her, but it would be poor manners to do to someone who has saved my life. There will always be an Icefang, but I would be very unhappy if it was not me.”

Simon struggled to take all of that in, trying to process the dense information he’d just been given. It put a new context on all the worlds he’d left half-finished, and part of him worried just how much damage he might have caused on some levels, but he had no way of fixing it.

“Can you go back in time too? Or just move through space and possibility,” Simon asked finally.

“Time travel is not possible,” the dragon said flatly, “Not even for your Goddess. She does not even move her pawns back in time. She just moves the past up to start again. That should be all the proof you need.”

Simon considered that, not sure what else to say. Eventually, he said, “Well, she pushes us through to the future, too. In fact, the exit I need to take is in your very hoard.”

“What?!” Icefang thundered, obviously taken by surprise at that. “Where?”

While it sniffed the air and looked around its hoard, Simon slowly walked to the area he thought the chest he was looking for was, and then, when he spotted part of it buried beneath a mound of coins, he started unburying it.

This dragon knows a lot, but it's obviously way off base, at least on some of this, Simon decided. The Pit goes through its cave, which probably means the Pit always goes through its cave. That’s like four million caves, minimum, and at least a few of them have gotten this far. If it really could see all possible worlds, it would know that. It would have seen other people before me.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He didn’t say that, though. The thing already smelled of smoke at its current level of agitation. Whether that was because of what he’d revealed about Helades or because he was digging through its hoard, Simon couldn’t say, but he had no wish to aggravate the dragon further.

“It’s actually right through here,” Simon said, opening the chest.

As soon as he opened the chest to show the twilight orchard that lay beyond, though, the dragon recoiled as if it encountered a foul smell. “How dare she,” the thing rumbled. As soon as it said those words, it started to inhale. That pained Simon because he knew what was about to happen next as he glanced across the cavern to where his backpack lay. There wasn’t anything he really needed in it, but it was always nice to have a solid backpack.

He didn’t bother trying to calm the beast. Instead, he just dove through the opening as quickly as he could, rolling as far as he could once he was on the other side. The gout of flame that followed was both intense and short. The stream of fire lasted only a moment because the gateway failed, and it was abruptly cut off. Whether that was because of how far he moved from it or because of the damage the dragon’s breath did to the container that was holding it, he couldn't say.

Still, at least he was in one piece. “Well, I burned that bridge in style,” he said with a little disappointment.

Simon used his cloak to beat down the small grass fire that was still going on next to him. The last thing he wanted was for someone to come out and investigate. As he did so, he battled his own annoyance. If he’d known that mentioning the gate would have made Icefang explode so thoroughly, he would have asked more questions first. The dragon obviously didn’t know everything, and it wasn’t right about everything, but it knew a lot, and Simon could definitely have learned more from it.

“Well, maybe I didn’t solve it,” he said hopefully, but he felt pretty sure he probably had. Oh well, what’s done is done, he told himself. I’ll just have to find another dragon or something.

Instead of dwelling on it, Simon looked around. The orchard was just as he remembered it, minus the bleeding and, of course, the vampire. His original plan, after he finished talking to the dragon, had been to drag the half-eaten corpse of Sir Anias and use the smell of blood to attract the vampire, but since he’d been forced through the gate a lot sooner than he’d intended, that was out.

With a shrug, Simon picked up a couple of likely branches and started cutting them down to size with his sword. Then, when he had half a dozen, he started whittling them down into wood stakes. The vampire might not be coming for him, but it was almost certainly still coming for that house down there, and he would be ready.

When the stakes were ready, and it was fully dark, Simon made his way down to the farmhouse to look around. It was a peaceful scene, and other than the firelight coming from the windows and the sounds of dinner and family coming from the main room, there was nothing happening.

Simon watched what looked to be an adorable family of six sitting down to eat a simple country meal together. As he looked on from the darkness, he felt the twin pangs of jealousy and hunger, but he ignored them both. Instead of dwelling on the fact that he hadn’t eaten for a while or how nice it would be to have exactly the sort of life he saw before him, he focused on finding a reasonably hidden place where he could watch and wait.

That’s why I’m doing this, he reminded himself. So that me and everyone else can sit down with the ones they love and have meals like that.

He ended up choosing the woodpile next to the shed because it had a clear view of the dining room window. However, as he waited, he pondered that thought because he realized that definitely wasn’t the truth, or at least not all of it. What was he doing in the Pit now? What was even the point?

It was a harder question than he would have thought. Ostensibly, he was here so that he could beat his punishment incarnation and then choose a more desirable life than the one that Helades thought he was due. But isn’t that what I’m doing already? He reflected.

It was. He was doing what he wanted. The very reason he’d come to the Pit was to do this, though perhaps in a slightly sane way. It was to go adventuring with Freya and raise a family. It was to make art and teach his son to be a man in Ionar. Trying to stop a dragon from being assassinated and biting off his tongue so that he could join an insane anti-wizard cult probably wasn’t on that list, but they hadn’t been the worst experiences, and he didn’t regret them.

Still, what is this all for? He asked himself again. He was on level thirty-three now. With some concerted effort, he could probably finish the whole thing in less time than he’d spent learning art in Ionia and—

As he tried to puzzle the answer out, his thought process was interrupted by the sound of a scream and then a crash in the dining room. Though he could only make out shapes from the poor-quality glass at this distance, he could still see enough to tell there was a fight or some sort of struggle. Even though he hadn’t heard the sound of breaking wood or shattering glass, the vampire had clearly made it inside the home.

Simon vaguely wondered about whether the thing had actually turned into a bat or a mist or whatever it was they were supposed to do. He didn’t think too much about it, though. Instead, he pulled out a stake for each hand where he’d tucked them into his belt, and he charged the door. This thing had already tasted his blood once, and he wasn’t going to get another chance.