Death After Death PLUS 312-314

Ch. 312 - The Long Way

Despite his hurry to leave Hepollyon, Simon was in no hurry to arrive in Ionar. That urgency had been caused by the growing discomfort of trying to live a life that wasn’t his anymore more than any tight timelines. He still had more than a year before the volcano was due to erupt. 

So, he took the long way down, heading to Coramin first and then further down the main trade road. It was a thoroughly depressing experience. 

Only a few lives ago, he’d spent years in this bustling trade city. He knew it inside and out. In that life, everywhere he’d gone, people treated him with respect. They knew his name. Now, though, he was a stranger here. That didn’t bother Simon so much; he was a stranger everywhere he went.

What bothered him was that all of his murals were gone. He visited each location where he’d once spent days painting, and in every case, they’d vanished. That was to be expected, of course. He knew that they wouldn’t be there, but just the same, in most cases, he stopped and sketched what that scene had looked like before when he’d finished his work. 

He even forced himself to go to the canyon where he and Bertrand had once spent weeks making a vast and very expensive mosaic. He was still in the city, of course. Simon could have found him and seen how he turned out without him, but the thought was too depressing. He could force himself to look at his works undone, but he couldn’t do the same for his relationships. 

In addition to studying art that was no longer there, though, he also studied the web of connections that made up even a simple market scene. At a glance, he could pick out the thieves and the scoundrels with the right state of mind. 

That wasn’t even because of their dull, muddy auras, either. It was because of the way their lines intersected with their targets. He couldn’t quite see into the future. That was the wrong way to look at it. It was more like he could see which two people were going to come into contact with each other an hour or two from now, and from the color of the connection, he could guess at what sort of interaction that might be.

One day, Simon lingered under a tree for half an hour under a shady tree while he ate a bitter orange and waited for a young man and woman to bump into each other just to see what it looked like when the romance promised by the red cord that bound them. 

It was an endearing sight. One minute, the young man and a dark-haired girl seemed to have no idea that the other existed, and the next, they only had eyes for each other, and he watched the pleasant shock of that moment cascade through both of them before going back to his lodgings to sketch the scene so he’d never forget it. 

As he went south, he saw more of the same thing. He found the villages he expected missing the art he’d once created, and he spent more and more time watching the sea. Of course, he found bandits on the road, too. This time, he didn’t find them physically, though, at least not at first. He found them in the way that lines of fate sprang from his sword and pointed to a rocky cluster miles away. 

Simon could have avoided the fight, and indeed, he did, at first, but only to see how the lines that tied him to the bandits would mutate or change. First, he tried switching his path, but still, they stayed linked. They only vanished when he resolved that he would fight them under no circumstances and headed back in the other direction for almost an hour. 

That didn’t really change them, though. It only moved the encounter far enough into the future that his sight was too weak to perceive it. At least, he was pretty sure that was the case. Simon could see it coming, so he wasn’t fated to fight them. He could have taken the long way through the foothills and avoided the encounter completely, but he wasn’t in the mood to spare vermin today. 

When he reached the boulders, he could see the cloudy auras of men hiding in the shadows, and he could see the threads that connected the six of them. “I know you’re there,” Simon called out, stopping before the first one revealed himself. “And any man that surrenders will be allowed to leave. The rest of you… Well, I’m going to have to take a hand at least.”

Simon knew he should try to handle things more peacefully. He knew it was good for both his sight and his experience, but sometimes, he didn’t care. He knew exactly how men like this operated, and as much as he wanted to be merciful, he knew that, in most cases, they’d be back to making the lives of his fellow men miserable as soon as he passed by. If he had more important things to do, sometimes that couldn’t be helped, but today, he had nothing more important than beating the snot out of lowlives; he could admire the sea and the mountains any day. 

“You keep talking like that, and I’m liable to let my men fill you full of arrows, stranger,” someone called out from hiding. “I’ve got ten men here. Why don’t you make this easy on yourself and throw down your coin purse? Your money ain’t worth your life.” 

The voice might echo, but Simon could see exactly where he was. He could also see that the man only had six men with him. 

Simon’s only answer was to drop his pack, pull his shield off his back, and draw his sword. All of them were upgrades thanks to his long stay in Ordanvale. The sword he’d used to kill the White Cloak and any number of monsters, but the shield was new, and he was looking forward to testing it. 

It was a wooden shield covered in a layer of beaten bronze and powered by an inset gemstone, which made it look much fancier than the wooden one he’d carried for so long. In addition to resisting fire, he could use it to draw the arrows heading toward him out of their path and toward the disk. So, getting shot was the last thing he worried about right now. 

“Last chance to avoid bleeding,” Simon called out as he turned to face his mostly hidden enemies. 

They should have surrounded him, but all the best cover was to the left of the road, so like cowards, they’d all grouped up there, which made them that much easier to defend against. He was grateful for that, or he would have had to whisper a word of protection, and he was trying to avoid using magic whenever possible these days. 

Simon could see ripples of cowardice flicker through the men's dark aura like lightning hidden inside of storm clouds, but after the first arrow fired, everyone else followed suit, which made this an easy equation in his mind. Anyone who was willing to kill was someone he didn’t have to feel bad about striking down. 

No sooner had the last arrow embedded in his shield than Simon charged the nearest man. In his eyes, he could see a family, so he didn’t lop off his head as he’d planned. Instead, he bashed him in the head, knocking him out cold before proceeding to the next man. Unfortunately, as the battle went on, Simon’s ability to see into the souls of these men faded. 

By the time he struck down the third one, and he lay bleeding out on the ground, he couldn’t see more than the darkness that clung to them. Eventually, when everyone else had dropped their bows to draw swords and knives and fight for their lives, he couldn’t even see that.

The fighting that followed was difficult only in that he was outnumbered. Simon might be out of practice, but none of these men had ever practiced in their lives. 

Steel rang against steel for several minutes, and then, when there were only two remaining, they both tried running, but in opposite directions. It was smart, he supposed. One might survive, but Simon wasn’t so easy to escape, not when he already had this much blood on his hands. 

He threw his sword end over end at the one running toward cover, impaling him through his mismatched leather armor that covered his back. Then, as the other one thought to outdistance him, Simon strolled over to the nearest dropped shortbow. Retrieving it and a couple of arrows. 

His first shot missed, whizzing by the runner close enough to scare him and make him change course. The second arrow, though, found its mark, dropping the man into the dirt. Simon doubted he was dead but thought that marching out there to kill him would probably be excessive.  

“Puncture wounds in an era without real medicine are no joke,” he told himself as he went around finishing off the other men who were dying. At this point, it was the only mercy he was willing to give them. The bandit leader begged for his life, but Simon ignored the man’s pleas. He’d already had his chance. 

The only one he spared was that first bandit. He lost his right hand after Simon took a few minutes to build a fire and heat one of the other men’s swords to red hot with it. The sudden sword stroke that cleaved off his hand didn’t wake the man, but the hot metal did. He woke up screaming in pain as Simon cauterized the wound, but Simon ignored that, too, as best he could. 

“What are you doing! Why!” the bandit asked. 

“Saving your life,” Simon answered as if that would make sense. “Every one of your fellows is dead, and for what?” Simon picked up a handful of coppers and silvers they’d swindled from passing caravans. “Do you think this paltry fortune was worth their lives? Do you think it’s worth yours?”

“I…” the bandit faltered. “You didn’t have to take my hand.”

“I didn’t have to spare your life,” Simon retorted as he pressed the coins into the man’s slack left hand. “But I did. Now go home and teach your son to be better than you.”

Simon didn’t feel too badly about what he’d done. Still, it clouded his vision enough that even days later, he could still only see slight glows or smoky outlines around the people he passed on the road. Fortunately, that wasn’t needed for his next encounter with bandits because as soon as they stepped out to block his path, Simon saw Niko’s familiar face among them, and it broke his heart. 

Ch. 313 - Only A Stranger

He’d often wondered what would have happened to his old apprentice Niko if he hadn’t spent a life as a blacksmith and surrogate father for the man, but he was a good kid. So Simon had never expected him to become a highwayman, and as the young man drew a knife on him, Simon couldn’t help but feel like he’d let the young man down. 

“Hand over your silver, and we’ll let you walk away with everything else,” their leader said. This one at least had the courage to lead from the front. Simon could respect that. 

Simon let his left-hand rest on the hilt of his blade as he tried to decide the best way to handle this. He wasn’t going to kill Niko, but did the other best serve as an object lesson or a show of mercy? He wasn’t sure. For now, he tried bluster. 

“I’ve got a sword on my hip, and a shield lashed to my pack, boy,” Simon answered. “Are you sure this is a fight you want to pick?”

“So you can fight,” the bandit leader spat. “If you want to make us work for it, then all you need to do is draw. No way you can take all of us.” 

As the leader spoke, his four lackeys started to spread out around Simon, almost lackadaisical in the way they held their weapons, as if he really was easy prey. That should have made things more complicated, but really, they made them much simpler.

Jackals. Simon thought as he felt the nervousness beneath those words. Useful only for fighting in packs. 

“Last chance, guy,” the leader said again when Simon was surrounded. “If you want—”

All of these people were operating under the false assumption that he couldn’t take every one of them. Simon might bleed for it, but the idea that he couldn’t take five hungry youths with little evident skill and visible ribs was laughable. However, right now, that wasn’t enough. The real problem was that he only wanted to kill four of them, which meant he had to take the fifth one out of action. 

So, when Simon moved, it was without warning. He didn’t draw his sword. Instead, he juked sideways, hooking his booted foot behind Niko’s, before shoulder-checking him hard enough to send him sprawling into the dirt.

The shock among the rest of the group at the sudden turn of events lasted only a moment. Then, all of them surged forward, but it was far too late for violence. 

“Oonbetit,” Simon pronounced, feeling the unfamiliar burn course through him. It had been years since he’d spoken a word of power. It might have been a decade. He wasn’t sure, but either way, it made the sulfur taste and the burning in his throat worse than it had been in a very long time.

These words really are hellish, he told himself, wondering how he could get used to such a thing so easily? 

In that moment, though, everything changed. The lights and shadows of his vision vanished, leaving him just as blind to the nature of things as the rest of the world, as a thin line of force traveled out for several feet in all directions, beheading all four men that rushed toward him. They never saw it coming, not even when their heads fell from their bodies and four men fell into eight pieces at his feet. 

Niko was on his feet seconds later, snarling in outrage that he’d been showed up like that. “Bastard!” he shouted, “That won’t work a second time.”

He really has gone feral, Simon sighed, studying the man he’d known. 

Niko dashed forward as he resolved to attack Simon, but in the time it took him to close the gap, he suddenly realized how the tables had turned. He wasn’t one of five anymore. There was no pack to help him. He was all on his own. 

Simon could have gutted him at that moment, but he didn’t. Instead, he used the moment of distraction to grab Niko by the wrist and disarm him as he gave him a judo throw past the corpses of his comrades on the far side of the road. 

“Warlock,” Niko gasped, trying and failing to fill his lungs after the blow. 

Simon ignored the accusation and said, “It would have been easier to kill five rather than four. You know that. Why do you think I spared you?”

It was an impossible question, and the only response, Niko pulled a knife from his boot before snarling, “You just want my soul,” at Simon.

Simon nodded, trying to appreciate the fearlessness more than the anger. Being afraid of warlocks was a perfectly reasonable response, but Simon could already see the young man trying to work up the courage to attack him again. 

“Is your mother still alive, or did her illness finally take her?” Simon asked, letting his words disarm the young man more than his actions ever could. 

He could only stare at Simon for a moment, completely stunned. Seconds passed before he found the strength to ask, “How do you know about her? Is this more of your dark magic?”

“In a way,” Simon said, not bothering to deny it. 

“What are you going to do to her?” Niko asked as some imagined horror went through his mind.  “Please… punish me, not her. She did nothing.”

“Me?” Simon said as he walked past Niko and started toward his village. “I’m going to save her. It’s not as if it's her fault that she’s raised such a wretched son.”

Simon did just that, as his one-time adopted son dogged at his heels the whole way. He threatened Simon several times and promised he’d tell everyone that Simon was a warlock if he dared to do anything to his mother, but he didn’t carry out that threat any more than he could stab Simon despite continuing to hold a knife in his hand. 

Simon, for his part, mostly ignored all of that and focused on how strange the world looked now that it was reduced to basic materialism. He’d had trouble grappling with the loss of detail that had come from killing a few days ago, but even as those details had started to come back, he’d wiped away all of that progress with a spell. 

I wonder how long it will take to come back, he asked himself as they went. He didn’t know, but he supposed it would be a good experiment. How much enlightenment or clarity did a single spell remove. 

Olven’s Narrows was much as Simon had left it in his previous lives. Other than the fact that the smithy had never been rebuilt, it was unchanged, reminding him of just how little of an impact he could have on the larger scale of things. 

Simon walked right to Niko’s hovel, even though the young man tried and failed to lead him astray. Simon only stopped when they reached it, when he said, “Out of respect for the old woman, I’ll make you a deal. You don’t tell her about how she was healed, and I won’t tell her that her son grew up to be a murderer.”

That chastened Niko enough for him to nod. Then Simon went inside and used a word of greater healing on the sleeping woman. He wasn’t dramatic about it, and truthfully, he probably didn’t even need the greater word, but he wasn’t going to be coming back to check on her, so he might as well be safe than sorry.

So much for not using magic, he sighed internally as he used spells for the second time in an hour. When it was over, he didn’t explain anything to Niko or his mother. He just walked to the shore, found a returning fisherman he recognized, and offered him a good price for a few of the sea bass he’d caught, then set about making an early dinner. 

“That’s it?” Niko asked, pestering him as Simon seemed to lose all interest in him or his mother. “You didn’t have enough time to curse her or heal her.”

“Because it took so long to slice apart your friends,” Simon chuckled darkly as he boned and gutted his fish. “I didn’t realize you were such an expert on magic.”

“You can really use magic then?” Niko asked. Simon ignored the question because it was a stupid one and instead directed the boy to build a fire, which he grudgingly did. 

By the time Niko’s mother was awake from her nap, dinner was all but done, and Simon shared it with both of them, along with a little white wine that they had. The meal was simple, but it was as delicious as it was quiet. 

Nikos's mother was a wonderful host and exemplified the hospitality that Ionians were supposed to show guests. Niko was a little tightly wound throughout the whole affair, but once he saw how much better his mom was feeling, he calmed down some. He didn’t say much, though, until after the meal when Simon went outside and sat amongst the ruins of the smithy he’d once worked for years. 

“You act like you know us,” Niko said finally. “Did you use your magic to find the way here, or did you just know the way?”

“I lived half a lifetime here once,” Simon confessed. “And it was a good life.”

“I… Why did you leave or come back?” Niko asked, obviously unsure what Simon had meant. 

“I stayed because it was a good spot to wait for things to play out,” he answered with a shrug, holding back the most important part. I did it because it was nice to be the father you never had and teach you a skill. “As to why I’m back? Well, I’ll be gone tomorrow. Someone will need to stop the volcano again.”

“The volcano?” Niko asked, his eyes widening. “Is it going to erupt again?”

“Not until next year,” Simon answered, meeting the young man’s gaze. “I’ll handle that. The question is, what to do about you?”

“Me? How’s that compare to an erupting—” Niko protested, but Simon ignored him. 

“I’ve had a decade to solve that problem, but you’re a new wrinkle,” He answered, taking the measure of the man as best he could without magic. “By rights, I should have killed you along with your friends, but I’ve spared you. Why is that?”

“I have no idea,” the boy answered, which was, at the very least, an honest answer. 

“It’s because I believe there’s good in you,” Simon said. “At least I want to.”

Niko defended himself and his decisions. He pled poverty and claimed he’d never killed anyone. Simon couldn’t see the truth, but he chose to believe him. What had started as a conversation about the profound slowly devolved into something closer to a paternal heart-to-heart, only making Simon feel that much worse about the whole thing. 

It’s not your fault, he told himself, about the time he made his excuses about how he needed to be going. You can’t be everywhere to right every wrong. 

“You’re welcome to stay with us for the night,” Niko answered. He’d promised to do better going forward, but it was obvious to Simon just how much he enjoyed this attention. He craved a dad just as much as he had in his past life, and that need was apparently strong enough to overwhelm his fear of a murderous warlock, which surprised Simon. 

Despite the kind offer to stay the night, Simon didn’t follow Niko back to his home when it got too late. Instead, he waited for the occupants of the hovel to extinguish their oil lamp while he looked out at the sea. 

With a heavy heart, Simon left the town and went to Ionar. As much as he might want to fix his one-time apprentice, he had higher priorities right now. While he would have loved nothing more than to rebuild the smithy one more time and teach the lad a trade, it just wasn’t in the cards. 

“I’m sorry, Niko,” Simon said as he left the village. 

With any luck, the young man wouldn’t fall in amongst a bad element like he had last time. As long as his mother’s health held up, he could make enough to support them both as a fisherman or a laborer. As he looked up to the silhouette of the volcano that was only visible in the way that it blotted out the stars behind it, Simon reminded himself he had much bigger concerns than any one man.

Ch. 314 - Ground Zero

If Niko’s fishing village had changed little without Simon’s intervention, then Ionar itself hadn’t changed at all. He arrived shortly before morning and stayed that first night in the first common room he could find that didn’t have a locked door.

After that, he stayed at the inn only long enough to have a quality Ionian toga fitted, then he went door to door in the upper city offering his services as a painter and maker of mosaics in the search for a place to lay his head for the evening. 

This didn’t go as well as it might have since he couldn't point out any public works that these potential patrons might have been able to see with their own eyes in any of the northern cities. Barring a real portfolio, he showed the sketchbook he’d made of the art he’d painted in a previous life, and when paired with lies about his accomplishments in faraway places like Brin, he eventually found someone with a vanity project they wanted him to accomplish. 

Master Strigeon was getting on in years and wanted a mosaic for his grandchildren to remember him by. The work was not creative, but for once, Simon didn’t really care what the project was. He just needed something to do that kept him close to the volcano and away from the Queen. 

The man wanted an image that was flattering to the point of parody, but Simon only made the revisions to the sketch that the man requested and then got to work. He might be an artist, but then, this wasn’t art. It was a cover story, and Simon treated it with a zen sort of patience. Besides the fact that the thing could last forever, that was the real advantage of mosaics over other art forms like painting. 

Once he decided what the final work should look like, he had to spend a great deal of time fetching new tiles from ceramic shops, breaking them just so, and then cementing them into place. That gave him all the time in the world to think, but strangely, he didn’t waste that on the doom that loomed over him on a daily basis or even the city that constantly surrounded him.

Simon had so many lifetimes tied up in both, but instead of bothering with either, he instead focused on the nature of the world and his sight, or lack thereof. He didn’t regret killing the bandits or even using magic, but he did want to see the world again the way he had for so long, so he spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating his soul and the world around him as he fumbled toward a solution. 

How can I solve something that I don’t understand? Simon asked himself fairly often as the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into months. 

He couldn’t, of course, so he didn’t beat himself up over it. He just made steady progress on his employer's mosaic, ate well, meditated often, and occasionally took dips in the sea. Occasionally, he did other things, like ponder how he might siphon off all the energy in this eruption to power some truly titanic work of magic or how he might use mosaics to create beautiful and nearly invisible works of art with precisely shaped tiles. 

Other than working or trying to restore his sight, though, the thing that Simon did most frequently was to paint. Something about the lack of art in his current task required him to paint sunsets or the city in watercolor just to feel like he wasn’t a complete fraud. 

Simon painted these purely for his own enjoyment and was quite surprised when the habit started to draw an audience of interested parties from onlookers who started offering him money for the paintings and even more for lessons on how to paint like that. He did so, but more for the recognition than the money. He already had as many coins as he could comfortably carry when the time came to go through the next portal. 

Instead, he took to donating the proceeds to lower-city healers so that they could do more charity work. That made him feel better about himself and seemed to help his experience score, but it did nothing to dull the pain in his heart whenever he looked at the palace and the royal gardens where he’d spent so much time with his son so long ago. 

Of course, this time, Simon was smart about it, and he donated the funds on the condition they tell no one where the money came from. He didn’t have any orphanages named after him in the current events of the world, and he had no desire to change that. 

I need to try to keep a lower profile this time, he told himself. Fortunately, just this once, that wasn’t such a hard promise to keep, and nothing he did managed to attract the attention of anyone more important than wealthy aristocrats as the days slowly ticked down. 

It was a simple enough life, and after six months, the first ghostly outlines started to return, showing that he was making progress on what really mattered. That was a relief, and after he got that far, he stopped worrying about it so much. Part of him had been convinced that it was a skill that would take decades to recover, but until he actually did, he had no way to know. 

After eight months, Simon finished his patron’s vainglorious art project and attended a party to show it to his peers. Despite his misgivings, the product was quite nice, and many other families wanted Simon to work on something for them next. He was running out of time, though, so unfortunately, he had to turn them down. As much as he would have loved to start something new and potentially more interesting, he would have hated to leave something half-done even more, and there was no way that he was staying here longer than he had to.

He was more tempted to go visit Niko again, but it would have broken his heart to find him out there killing people again, so Simon opted not to. Instead, he reminded himself that he was here to stop an eruption and then go to level 12 and fight a bridge troll. That was it. For once, things are nice and simple. I'm going to solve things right without leaving new problems in my wake. 

When the eruption finally arrived, it actually took him by surprise. Simon’s stay with the Strigeon household became a relaxed, unhurried thing, and though they were in no hurry to remove such a prestigious and honored guest, he had nothing he had to do on any given day and soon became more than a little lazy. Not so lazy that he was as indolent as the nobles he was surrounded with, of course. His pride couldn’t bear such a thing. 

Still, he became less productive than he had in years. He would spend his mornings painting or down in the lower city helping at the now very well-financed public clinic or the orphanage. He especially enjoyed that latter one and spent a lot of time teaching kids the basics of reading, just for something to do. 

The mornings really didn’t matter, though. He knew from experience that when the volcano erupted, it would be in the afternoon, so he made sure to be back at the mansion that was his current home every day from midday to sunset so he could go at a moment’s notice. It was only then, when the danger had passed that he allowed himself to drink and paint or read. He even started experimenting with aura paintings, trying to capture the feeling of someone based on their surrounding glow rather than their actual details, with mixed results. 

Still, one day, the thing erupted, and he instantly started to gear up. Simon had planned for this day for a long time. The last time, he’d arrived at the scene of the crime to see his evil twin. Really, that was the first time he’d seen the other Simon. It felt like such a long time ago that sometimes he forgot. 

“He’ll probably be long gone before I show up,” Simon told himself, but he didn’t care. As much as he wanted to have it out with the man, he wanted to save the city more, which meant he had to be prepared for the fight. Fortunately, Simon had been preparing for this moment for a decade, and after donning and double-checking the fireproof leather armor that he’d crafted in case the orb didn’t work, and he had to do single combat with the titan again. 

“It will work,” he told himself as he exited the building. “This will definitely work.”

Despite how fast Simon had got ready, the volcano was already smoking, and people were running around in a panic, unsure of what to do. No lava had started to cascade down the slopes, but Simon had no doubt that it was about to. 

“Armor? Finally, someone with some sense to him to defend against looters,” Simon’s patron said as he walked past him. “Wait, where are you going?” he continued as he realized Simon wasn’t stopping. That made Simon smile, but he said nothing. No matter what happened next, he didn’t need to stay on the man’s good side anymore. 

Now, all he needed to do was stop an eruption and maybe slay a monster that tried to emerge from it. He might also have to fight himself, too, but given that his doppelgänger hadn’t actually tried to stop him last time, that seemed less likely. 

Unfortunately, as Simon approached the end of the high city and saw the path winding up the shrine at the foot of the cliffs, that option became slightly more likely. Someone was definitely sitting there, and Simon was pretty sure he knew who it was. 

As Simon got closer, one thing became more clear, and one thing became much clearer to him. The first was that it was definitely himself that was waiting for him up there, sitting on the small folk altar. The second, more important point, though, was that it wasn’t the Simon he expected to see.

His evil twin was sitting right there for all the world to see, but there was just one detail that was off; there were no shadows that clung to him. If anything, the man was glowing quite brightly, and one didn’t flow like that by becoming the sort of monster that made volcanoes erupt and killed thousands. 

Simon didn’t draw his sword as he approached. Instead, he set his bed down, pulled out his heavy metal orb, and set it down on his pack’s beaten leather while the other version of him regarded the thing. 

“Are you going to tell me what this is really all about?” Simon sighed, looking at his mirror image with annoyance. The man had the crown and looked utterly unchanged from last time, but now Simon wasn’t even sure this was really him. His aura had never been half this bright. 

“About?” his duplicate asked, playing coy. “I don’t know what you mean. We’re here to see if you can stop me from wiping out Ionar in a sea of lava, aren’t we?”

“I used to think so, but now…” Simon sighed. “Can we cut the crap? What’s this really about?”

“You think it will work then?” the other version of him asked, nodding to the orb as he ignored Simon’s question. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” Simon countered, unwilling to cede the point. 

“Nor will I,” the doppelgänger agreed with a nod before he stood. “I suppose I’ll leave you to it then.”

Then, with a slight gesture and a minor mocking bow, the other version of himself vanished, leaving Simon behind, only slightly annoyed. “I’m getting played,” he told himself, that one glimpse of his own aura, though not nearly as detailed as he might have liked, definitely showed that his evil twin was anything but evil.

Simon pondered that for a moment longer. Then, as the volcano rumbled especially violently, he forced himself to concentrate, spoke the words of greater force, and launched the thing skyward toward the volcano’s caldera. His first greater word in a very long time ripped through his throat hard, leaving the taste of blood on his mouth, as he only recently recovered vision, vanished a second time. This time, at least, it was worth it, and he watched as his golden orb raced skyward before vanishing into the thickening smoke far above him. For better or worse, the die had been cast.