Book 8 – Chapter 44 – Destiny

“You have been staring at my back for the past fifteen minutes Talen. Have you completed your thoughts and come to a conclusion?” Urs asked, meditating in the garden.

He was currently replotting his flowers, and taking great care in doing so. The entire time, one single human was lurking in the shadows further behind. Contemplating.

Urs decided it was time to draw him out.

Talen stiffened, then walked out into the light, knowing there was no pretending otherwise. “I shouldn’t have been surprised you’d know I was here. You really do have eyes on the back of your neck.”

“I do not. That would appear very strange. They are located in the walls far above, and have high magnification abilities.” Urs said, slowly covering dirt over the final tulip.

A nice shade of violet. It complimented the gold poppies he’d put down.

“I need to confess something.” Talen said.

“It must be important if you remained still for a quarter of an hour. What troubles you?”

“There is… another person.”

“There are many of those, yes.” Urs said, moving onto the next part of his garden. “You have collected quite the number of followers thus far. What makes this person more important?”

He hoped it wasn’t some kind of human drama. He preferred the quiet grove here for a reason. Each time he’d set out with Talen, the adventure had usually involved quite a few other people. At least Talen handled most of the talking for them, so it was far more pleasant.

Talen took a breath and finally spoke what was on his mind: “All those years back? I didn’t stumble on your grove here by accident. I was looking for you.”

“I know.” Urs nodded to the flower in front of him. “You have already hinted in prior discussions that you had set out specifically in search of me, or rather the one who crafts the armors. The mites led you to my general location and you stumbled on the rest during your fight against that machine.”

After they’d met, both of them had gone out to go hunt after the renegade machine that had thrown Talen through his roof. It was quite the fight. Apparently Relinquished was starting to disapprove of Talen, at least enough to send out her stronger units to go handle him.

But Talen remained silent behind Urs, which meant… “The mites did not send you?” Urs asked, more confused. He even stopped tending to his plants while he considered.

If not the mites, then who else? Talen certainly wasn’t working with any machines. Urs was quite certain he was fully committed to humanity’s cause. And the budding alliance of those seven core cities was already starting to be promising. Each time they’d set out to explore, they’d find new signs of humanity hiding in the shadows and begin efforts into bringing them into the growing network.

Talen was a natural born leader. Urs had no doubts if there was anyone who could unite this many cities together, it would be Talen.

He was looking forward to seeing what his friend would end up as.

But what other faction would have been able to track him down? None of these cities had anywhere near the resources required to even guess at where his grove was.

“It’s someone I’ve been working with to pull everything together. And I don’t just mean finding you. I mean… everything. All of it.” Talen started. “The alliances, the cities, everything. She’s been helping me from the start. From the moment she found me. Long before I found you or knew your name.”

“An elder? Who is she in this context?” Urs asked. A single human could certainly change quite a lot. Talen was an example, and in an odd way, Urs himself knew he had caused a drift in future history despite being a singular individual.

But if there was another human out there organizing logistics, he was more impressed he hadn’t heard of her yet. Although he had remained here for some time now, letting Talen advance further down the stratas in his steed. The man was far more deadly than Urs would ever be. He was far more happy modifying the armors to Talen’s specifications and requests.

“She’s been here before I was. She’s human, but not quite human anymore. Similar to yourself. She’s against revealing herself to you, even now. Constantly told me not to take chances like this, but I’ve had enough. She’s being a coward. You’re too important to simply leave out of the picture.”

“My importance is overstated.” Urs said. “I only update and improve your armor based on your feedback and suggestions, or build more for your followers. I am not involved in any other way beyond that. The occasional forays we do outside my grove are exceptions.”

“You’re an icon to people now Urs, you always were from the moment you put that username down into that miteforge. Everyone knows your name, and so does she.” Talen took a breath. “She tracked you down before Relinquished could. And she’s been hiding your location from her this whole time after.”

Urs finished plotting his last plant, then stood up to his full height. “She has been protecting me from notice? That is rather kind of her. If she does not wish for me to know her existence, I do not see a reason I need to be informed.”

He was plenty capable of keeping his own existence hidden from Relinquished, he’d been doing so this entire time. The idea that another was doing that made little sense. Perhaps this collaborator was lying to his friend in order to overstate her importance. Many humans lied.

“It’s not about niceties.” Talen said, shaking his head. “It’s about the potential. She finally opened up and spoke to me all those years ago, took a leap of faith on that potential. I was just another nomad mage, seeking knowledge and she happened to take a gamble on me. Look where it got us. But she’s refused to make another move again. She moves too slowly, Urs. Like a mite mountain. Thinks over the span of centuries instead of single years. And we can’t keep moving along at this pace. You might be immortal Urs, but I’m not. Humanity isn’t. Look at all the good we’ve done together in only a few years. And look at all the good I’ve managed with her guidance here. Imagine what you and her could do together. And if I need to claw her out into the light and drag her here myself to make that happen, I will. I am.”

“You are making the attempt, yes.” Urs said, then finally turned and walked up to Talen, looking down at the younger man. “Very well. You are my friend, if you believe I should meet this benefactor of yours, I will do so.”

More than just a friend. His only friend. The only person that came here to his grove to talk. It had begun as a mutual business relationship, but enough time had gone by that Urs began to believe Talen saw him as more than the armorsmith.

The younger man nodded, “Good. Good.” He unhooked a golden orb from his backpack. It glowed with power, and Urs could tell it was a mite-forged construction. His scans went through, licking every edge within, prying out the secrets. It was built to communicate across the occult. A mitelantern in a way, except far more specific and conventional task. Interesting. He had not yet seen a schematic like this.

“What is her name?” Urs asked, extending a hand out to take the orb from the man’s hand.

Talen took a breath. “Her name is Tsuya.”

“You’re… URS?” I asked in the silence that came after those three words.

As in the one who crafted these armors. The one who worked hand in hand with Talen and Tsuya in fixing the world up.
The one Aztu had shared an entire record of.

The first human to actually end up on Relinquished’s most hated list.

And the one who’d created the Deathless.
The first Deathless.

All of that went unsaid in my stupefied question.

I could see the exact moment every knight here understood who this was. They all instantly took a knee, head bowed down in respect.

This wasn’t going to help with those prophet allegations I was currently wrapped into with them all.

Even Father seemed a little stunned by this, slowly inclining his head in a very faint trace of acknowledgement. He still held the dead husk in one hand, ready with the other to stab in case of insanity.

“Yes. That is my username.” Urs said. “Before my imprisonment, Relinquished told me she would wipe my name from the world. Eradicate everything I built, and crush every city I know the name of until only sand and ash remained where I once stood. You seem to recognize my name and use my armors despite that threat. I take it that her plans did not go as she had hoped?”

“No.” I said, trying to get myself back together to talk right. “Well, yes, she’s gotten some things done in the time between the empire and now. But no, all of the surface knows your name. You’re a god among my people.”

“A god on the surface?” Urs sounded mildly shocked about that. “Before I cause any theological issues, are you aware of who Tsuya is?”

I nodded. “She’s human. A human soul mixed with a golden age military AI at the last second.”

“Close enough. She only had access to that AI’s full capabilities for twelve or thirteen seconds before the core was destroyed and its ability to calculate gone with it. In that span of time she managed quite a lot of items including a near deathblow on Relinquished, and the entire plan to hide the surface. Part of that plan was the surface clans. Tsuya created your culture and mythos to assist with the surface culture’s isolation. In that original mythos, there was only one god, herself. So you see my confusion on being called a god. I have only visited the surface a few times in the past, long after she had completed her goals. And only to assist in creating imperial temples for futureproofing, while Talen handled affairs further out into orbit. But nothing we have done would have filtered into mythos of the surface clans. We were very circumspect in our dealings with the surface.”

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I shrugged. “I don’t really have an answer for you. You’re known as one of the three gods, along with Talen and Tsuya. One of the three satellites that fly around the world is named after you. You’re sung about as often as the other two are.”

“Interesting.” Urs said. And he sounded like he meant it. “It would need to be a deliberate change and adjustment. One only Tsuya could do herself. And I do not see any pragmatic reason she would have modified it. This changes some aspects of her I had disregarded prior.”

“Changes what?”

“I always assumed she was lying to us when she called us her true friends and peers.” Urs said. “Tsuya had no equal. She was far older than any of us could be. I believed she saw us as tools. Friendly. But never comrades. Even after all the time I spent with her in the digital sea. Her isolation from humanity during the dark ages seeing humanity as numbers and statistics would have made it hard for her to be friends with anyone. Hence why I did not believe her. Even during the empire’s creation and management, she still seemed to hold everyone at a distance.” The blue eyes looked up, past the confines of the prison here. “I see her actions. She has placed us on the same rank as herself, in her own way. I feel regret for not having believed her all those years prior. I owe her an apology then. Was she searching for me this whole time?”

“Yes.” I said, holding up the miteseeker. “She went through a lot of hoops to get us here. She’s been looking for you for a very long time now.”

“How did she manage to do so without A01 or the others foiling your path? They would have been dispatched here to eliminate you.”

“Uh, they rebelled.”