Lord of Entertainment

Chapter 522: Saza's origin

(3rd Person POV)

The city carried on far below the tower window, bright and unbothered, but Firfel had stopped seeing any of it. Arthur's last words still hung in the room — that somewhere out across the timelines, another version of him might already be deciding to come and end this one. The thought reached into her chest and closed around something there. She took his hand and held it, and would not let go.

"Why would they do that?" she said. "Do they have a Devourer Ring too?"

Arthur shook his head, his gaze still on the glass. "As far as I know, I'm the only one who carries it. Maybe because I fell into this world by chance, and the ring drank the energy out of Saza's array before either of us understood what was happening. That, and I have Chronette — she came with me, out of the Matrix itself."

The tension eased out of Firfel's shoulders.

"But I can't say for certain," he went on. "Some other Arthur may have found his own road here. Whatever it is, I don't know it yet."

Her relief thinned as quickly as it had come. "Th-then why would they come for you?"

Arthur was quiet a long moment. Then he turned from the window, and she saw him decide something. He told her the rest of it — the System, the truth buried inside it, and the reason every Arthur scattered across the timelines stood against all the others. He set it out plainly, piece by piece, and by the time he finished Firfel had gone pale and still.

"You're saying that once you inherit the One True Throne," she said slowly, "every other timeline where an Arthur exists will just... cease to be?"

Arthur sighed. "More or less. And I know for certain that if any of those other Arthurs have already dug out the secret of the System, they'll stop at nothing to remove me before I can."

The weight of it settled over her. Somewhere beneath the fear she grieved for all those worlds that would be swept away — and even so, she knew where she had to stand. Her gaze firmed. "Arthur. I believe in you. Right now, you have the strength to take that throne and keep it. I know you do."

"That's right, Firfel. Keep faith in me." He crossed the room toward her. "My power is conceptual now. After taking this world, I could rewrite the timeline itself with the Devourer Ring if it came to that."

Something surfaced in her thoughts. "Then can't you use it — your power over time — to look ahead? See whether you're taken from me or not, and which Arthur it is that's slipped in here?"

"I already have. I've got the shape of it." He stopped in front of her. "But reading the future by itself is never absolute. There may be pieces I can't see, and that other Arthur might have some way to cheat the very future I'm looking at."

His voice steadied. "But don't be afraid. When I conquered this world and its Origin, the System handed me a new skill. «Check Point». Even if I'm killed somewhere ahead — erased entirely — I come back here on my own, and I'm given the chance to set it all right again —"

His eyes snapped wide.

Firfel felt the change go through him before he made a sound. "Wh-what is it? Are you all right?"

For a breath he was gone, his gaze fixed on nothing at all. Then he drew back into himself. "I-I'm fine."

She was too sharp to let it pass. Her eyes widened. "Wait. You just used it — didn't you? «Check Point»."

His face was grave, and he did not try to hide it. "Yes."

"What happened? Something in the future — what did you see?"

Arthur nodded slowly. "It seems I overestimated myself and let my guard slip. There's an Arthur from another timeline already walking this world — wearing the face of Solarus's son."

"Solarus's son?" Her brow drew tight. "I don't understand."

"You will, and soon." He let out a breath. "For now, we go home. Two months or so have passed back there — it's nearly time to make Avatar."

She was uneasy about every part of it, yet she let the unease go; her husband held a card no one else at the table could match. "You're right. I've been looking forward to setting foot on that planet again — to seeing Eyana Sylari."

"There's one thing first," Arthur said. "I need to see Saza."

Firfel nodded. "To have her open the portal back to our world?"

He shook his head. "No. We can cross back through the True Dimension."

"Ah — of course." The corner of her mouth lifted despite herself. "That cheat system of yours."

---

Across the city, in the principal's office at the top of Eisenturm Academy, Saza had only just left Profellie's company. She had shut the door on the noise of the streets and bent over the newest device on her workbench, a half-built thing of glass and wire she had been coaxing toward working order.

She was sinking into the work when Arthur simply appeared before her, standing in the middle of the room as though he had always been there.

"Oh? Arthur." She straightened and set down her tools. "What brings the Great Deity Dionysus to my office?"

Arthur smiled. "Forgive me. Am I interrupting?"

Saza laughed. "Not at all."

"Then shouldn't you have known I was coming?" He watched the words find their mark. "You can see the future, after all."

She went still, and looked at him a long moment. "So. You've worked it out."

Arthur lowered himself into the chair across from her desk. "I have. And I'll say it plainly — that 'accidental' summoning of mine, back in my home world, was no accident either."

Saza gave only a faint smile.

"You built an array to bind our two worlds together," Arthur said, "so that you could meet the one this world had been waiting for. Its savior. Me. Am I wrong?"

She let the quiet stretch before she answered. "You've hit the nail on the head. Though there's a thing you should understand — when I look into what's coming, it reaches me as written words, never as images. I never knew the shape of the world beyond, or the face of the savior in it. I truly had no notion it would be you." Her mouth curved. "You'll remember I first took you for a demon lord."

Arthur laughed softly. "I do. But that isn't what brought me. I came because I know something more — you were the Attendant of the Former Deity of Time. Am I right?"

That struck her, and she did not hide it. "How could you possibly know that?"

"It's simple. I've come from the future." He met her eyes. "And in that future, you tell me all of it — once you learn that I can bend time to my will."

Saza's eyes went wide. "I see. I knew it. You are not merely the savior of this one world — you are the savior of this whole timeline. Perhaps of every timeline there has ever been."

"That," Arthur said, "is word for word what you told me before."

Slowly, Saza lowered herself to one knee. "If you've truly come from the future, then you already know. The Deity of Time gave up her own life to shield this timeline — thousands of years ago now."

"I know. It's because of her that I've grown as freely as I have, that my counterparts haven't wiped us from existence yet. She wrapped this entire timeline in her power, so that nothing from the outside could reach in and touch it."

Saza nodded — then caught on a single word. "Your counterparts?"

"Yes. It may be that whatever forced its way into this timeline, all those thousands of years ago, was another version of me. An Arthur from some other line of time."

Her eyes went wide. "What?"

"And that's not the whole of it." Arthur's voice dropped. "My mother — the woman I spent my whole life believing was an ordinary mortal — was the Deity of Time's avatar. She died in the very moment she gave birth to me."

It detonated somewhere deep in Saza. "This... it can't be..."

"I know how much it sounds like a knot with no end," Arthur said. "But it holds. Even as she died, she was the one who set the idea of a 'savior' in you — and crossed into our world, and found me."

Saza's eyes went wide, and understanding settled over her. That was exactly the kind of thing Lady Time would do.