Thinking about Dax reminded Sammy of something. Shit! Did I miss a vision-giving? I’m not even sure. Oh well, nothing for it but to correct it now. Carlisle. As planned. He’s even more separated from me than Dax, and he’s got that weird sneakiness and love of thievery thing going I noticed back in the cave-spelunking mission to save Agatha. On top of that, he joined me despite tons of logical misgivings. He’s probably a Player. Time to hit him up and decide things!

  Lord Carlisle was in some sort of Barracks quarters, spartan, rough around the edges, but nice enough — which made it feel precisely like the man occupying it. He was reading Conquest of the Pine Coast at a desk when Sammy pinged him with a mirror request.

  He closed the book and looked into a mirror propped up on the desk when she appeared. He nodded to her. “Your Majesty. To what do I owe the honor?”

  Sammy grinned lop-sidedly. “What, I can’t check on and chat with my Most Happenin’ Follower, the Illustrious Rockpile Carlisle?”

  He stared through the mirror at her deadpan. “I don’t like that moniker, so I’ll ask you not to use it, Madam.”

  Sammy took a breath and shrugged, with effort not rolling her eyes. “Eugh, fine, I won’t.” Not to your face, anyway. How would I ever get it out of my head?!

  “As for a ‘chat,’ I doubt you have the time for such things without a purpose these days. I’d prefer you ‘cut to the chase,’ as Michael would say. With all due respect, Madam.”

  “Ooh, they’re teaching you guys Earth sayings? Awesome! But sure. You’ve no doubt heard about me giving permanent buffs to my closest Followers. I think it's time to drop that hammer on one of my Brain Trusties. You’re okay with that moniker, I hope?”

  “Brain Trustee?” He’d clearly misheard her emphasis. “Of course.” He leaned back and considered. “I’ve heard of the buffs. I can see the logic in selecting me. Do we need to arrange a meeting?”

  “While I’d prefer a face-to-face, Dantooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don’t worry, I can blast you from here!”

  Carlisle stared at her deadpan once more. “Another obscure Earth reference.”

  “Yep! More seriously, I think this needs to be done through the mirror this time around. And it literally always drops people on the floor — I’d rather avoid that, so please go lay on your bed, hmm?”

  Nodding simply and grabbing the mirror stand, Carlisle rose and took the few steps between his bed to lie down, placing the mirror next to him. “Alright, now what?”

  Sammy targeted him with [Tarot Reading: Vision of a Bright Future] and the Goddess of Fate intoned, “Would you deign to see a vision of your future and be illumined by it, User?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  The void of the Fortuneteller bloomed into her perception once more. This time, there was an immediate struggle because the Fortuneteller wanted total dominance as usual. But Sammy refused it.

  “Listen to me, bitch!” Sammy related through willfully clenched mental teeth. “I’m tired of you dictating. Guide! Let’s do this in balance so it is both of us together.”

  ‘Damn that hermit. So be it. Pointless and less instructive, but have it your way.’

  “Our way, FT. Our way. Guide me.”

  Carlisle looked nearly the same, except that he had an eyepatch over one eye with the Eye of Horus emblazoned in the center. He glanced around with a staid kind of note-taking rather than curiosity. He was otherwise clad in a leather longcoat and had on a wide-brim hat of the same material. His clothes were those of a traveler, worn but not ragged.

  The table and chairs were just as she’d imagined — sturdy, solidly crafted, and very spartan. But one thing stood out. The typical white card was in the middle of the table, but below the question mark was a black emblem of a pyramid with the Eye of Ra in white at the top portion. The bottom portion formed the lines of two jackals facing each other as if guarding it.

  Hmm.

  ‘And what will you tell him, Understudy? You know nothing.’

  “Then tell me!”

  ‘That’s not how this works. I literally and wholly cannot. Do you see how your stubbornness is pointless, now?’

  “It isn’t. But fine. Guide my tongue — when necessary, only. I’m watching you. Don’t be a raging bitch to my people. Be polite and considerate. Mix my soul with yours.”

  ‘Hmmph. Indeed. Your hubris proves you as one of us. Yes. I’ll try.’

  The Fortuneteller cast her hands wide as if in greeting to Carlisle and smiled. “Welcome, staunch and perpetual sentinel. You come to learn how to serve our goals best. Do you sense this truth, oh Incarnation of many faces?”

  Carlisle turned to regard her with a judicious, squinting eye. “There’s a gulf between us. I’ve respected it… but I’ve also respected the builder beyond whom I must serve. You. So, yes. I suppose.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Mmn. But if you had to choose, whom would you serve? Yourself? Your higher self? Are you One Who Sleeps?”

  His one eye blinked, and his hand came up to rub at the stubble at his chin as he pondered it. But he ultimately shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s too foggy, too far into the drink of desolation that is the past leading to Now.”

  “Well spoken. So it is with everyone, to varying degrees.” She gestured with a hand at the table. “Sit, and perhaps we can see more clearly through a vision.”

  Carlisle nodded firmly. “To the point, that’s what I prefer. Nothing more, nothing less. Execution.”

  Hmm…

  They sat across from one another like so many before. The Fortuneteller, for her grand preparation… took out a deck of simple cards and shuffled them in her hands, smirking. Carlisle nodded again like this was exactly as much pomp as he wanted.

  “Are you a gambler, Incarnation?” the Fortuneteller asked as she took her time shuffling.

  Carlisle shook his head. “Not if I can avoid it. In all honesty, I’d prefer none of this, begging your pardon, ma’am. Card play. Games. But one man’s life, or a thousand lives, there comes a time they have to be gambled. Best to minimize it, but everyone must pay the piper.”

  “All too true.” She pushed the card deck over to Carlisle. “Shuffle.”

  He did so placidly, as the Fortuneteller drummed her fingers slowly on the wood, watching. Before long, Carlisle grew a frown. He cleared his throat. “Is that enough, or…?”

  With a small smile, the Fortuneteller nodded almost imperceptibly. After Carlisle set the deck down, she flicked her wrist, and the deck fanned out quickly into a semicircle in front of him. “Choose.”

  Sammy was puzzled. “No further direction?”

  ‘No.’

  Drumming the fingers of two hands on the wood, Carlisle scanned the cards. Finally, he picked the card furthest to his right. Inwardly, Sammy felt the Fortuneteller’s amusement. She knew exactly what he’d do.

  “You may turn it over as you desire.”

  Nodding to himself even as he frowned, he turned it over sideways, revealing the card.

  A king sat on a throne — above his gold-crowned head were three butterflies etched into the chair back, and two sickles behind them. He held a sword straight up confidently in his right hand, and he stared straight on soberly with a piercing gaze that demanded truth. His robe of light blue covered him completely, and he wore the purple cloak of his station over his shoulders. His throne sat on a background of healthy nature, with tall trees to either side.

  Ah. It suits him!

  “King of Swords,” The Fortuneteller intoned. “The Sober Sword, the Executor of The March of… What, pray tell? Bend your sword and power with assurance to the path you choose, but choose now. The time of your ambivalence and indecisive hand-wringing is over! Pick your poison, fool — or find fate’s surprise in your next draught!”

  Hey, I said be poli-

  The flash of light did not wait for her to finish, however…

  ??············???···········??

  The Alliance of the Wild Bastions, fighting for the independence of the former Borderlands, held strong that day. They’d ‘lost’ the Keep of Restwater for mere hours before they sprung the trap, collapsing the whole structure and charging in on two flanks to wipe out the remainders.

  Many wizards died thanks to their combined arms. A fraction of their forces had gotten away, and Carlisle had killed their precious mercenary hero ‘general’ Rallante himself — the very man that had bested him and took his eye, in their first meeting.

  You won your little battle, bastard; I won our little war. May it be the microcosm of our successful revolution.

  Carlisle, standing on the central hill of the rubble, bloodsoaked and covered in wounds still on their way to regenerating, dropped the foul blade that had dealt the worst one yet — he’d pulled it out of his own chest, where it had narrowly missed his heart. Maybe that would’ve taken him down. As it stood, he’d be fine. Its ‘lesser’ Entropic effect had been nullified by the new buff, and he was otherwise regenerating.

  Those potions certainly do the trick, Goddess. It had not been his own prowess to save him, but a technology derived from troll blood. He didn’t care about the details. It was irremovable before its duration was up and it suited him; it was synergistic with what prowess he did have…

  Carlisle grunted and pushed himself to take a few more steps, to lift and drive the standard pole he’d picked up off the ground so recently into the rubble as hard as he could. Two flags flew over the dusty remains of the keep covered in dead bodies. The charging chimera of the Wild Bastions on red, and the path leading up a hill to a starburst, of the Celestial Horizon, on blue.

  The keep was irrelevant — the Goddess herself planned to come and rebuild a newer, better one by her supreme artifice. Castles, keeps, fortresses, and walls meant nothing to her realm. The time spent to rebuild was nothing compared to holding that city down.

  Turning around to regard his soldiers and allies gathering to witness the sight of those billowing beacons, Carlisle thrust up his spear and gave the fiercest warcry of his life. He had no words, no rousing speech. Just raw, animal defiance; simple, victorious relief. An army answered with the same, weapons cast up in bloodied celebration.

  Carlisle’s eyes fell upon the mutilated corpse of Rallante, his innards spilled out and a spear-sized hole through his eye socket. A better fighter with better equipment, accolades, and specialties. Better reflexes, better strength. But he was not the dealer of death that day. Fate had decided otherwise.

  I am the spine of this movement, and when I have to be, I am its hand of death. The executioner of retribution. How tenuous the tightrope was to here… If I had not chosen to betray those old oaths for new, then what? Thank the Goddess for that wild hair she placed. If not a fool, I’d be something far worse: a coward.

  Every little wound he took, he absorbed, he ate. Enough of that power without taking a death blow, external healing, and so on, and he could fell a giant with his special skill. Thanks to the troll blood, that was plenty.

  No wound is too deep to take for this new world. Live or die, at least I fought for something I believed in. It feels like the first time in a million years that I did. Desiree… wait a little longer, Love. I fight forever in your honor. The next life will be peaceful. We’ll retire in the end, glutting on desserts and our grandchildren’s laughter, our minds whole and hale, never forgetting so much as a mole spot on each other…

  Carl's inner iteration appears to be just as exciting as he is.

  Next Chapter...

  How ‘bout them apples?

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