Chapter 49: More Cracks

Perspective: Tyron


Tyron toyed with a small pebble in his hands as he sat on a bed, warping it into different shapes. Sometimes he would do this when he was bored, this time he was doing it out of stress. He was in Astro's room, where he had been told to wait. He had not been waiting very long but had asked Kir how long it had been at least twice per minute since he arrived. After five minutes, he barely even had to grunt for Kir to give him an update.

"Ten minutes exactly, stop asking," the sword chirped inside his head.

He grunted again and started pacing. Astro's room was brighter than he'd expected. His clothes were drab, but the walls were a jolly, yellow terracotta. Aside from that, it was quite sparse, with just a workbench, a potion stand, a bed and several chairs. No table for people to gather around. Tyron wondered if he should read something into that - that Astro would tolerate visitors but didn't want them to stick around too long. Certainly, he rarely invited anyone back.

If he had been less stressed, Tyron would have heeded this intuition and just sat in one of the chairs. However, he was stressed enough that he prioritized comfort over politeness.

Astro had approached him as he came out of a planning session with some of the lower-ranking officers - discussions of patrol routes and what to do in the event of a Tower attack. He had discussed the same principle with minor alterations so many times he could have done the entire meeting in his sleep - in fact, Kir had told him he often mumbled out a slightly less coherent version while napping. As such, he left the room in a drowsy, resigned mood. If they were attacked, prospects were bleak. The Entity's project of refocusing everything on the defence of key facilities had saved them, but it was only a matter of time. He should have been terrified, but after a while certain doom gets literally tiring.

When Astro told him to meet him in his room in twenty minutes, however, Tyron felt tortuously awake. He had that look in his eyes again - the horrible revelation look. The first time Tyron saw it, Astro had warned him not to vote for Kay. He saw it again after Kay assumed control, shortly before he learned how Kay went out - as a tyrant and a traitor. He did not look forward to this new revelation.

Sometimes he just wanted to assume Astro was crazy - to tell him as much. It would be so easy. But since he started hearing these messages, things started making sense. He thought back to him and Kay's heart-to-hearts.

He had spoken so reverentially of Herobrine and his war. It had given him purpose, and then after the fact, all the principles he devoted himself to were betrayed.

"I only wanted to be with my friends after the first fireships went in. And now, beyond keeping them safe, I don't think I want any more causes."

The Kay he knew was already a deeply broken man, whose cracks were readily apparent to anyone who could look beyond the posturing and bravado. Tyron wondered how far the cracks could spread without the goodness spilling out of him altogether.

The door opened. Astro, followed by Lucy. Tyron stood up.

"No, sit down," Astro said hurriedly.

He ushered Lucy through, then closed the door. He patted it, and a rune was briefly visible. He squinted at it, then nodded before turning to the others.

"Lucy," he said. "Tell Tyron what you just told me. About what Kay said to you when you gave him the coins."

Tyron had heard Kay's side of the story - a confident boast about how he and "The Beast" had reached deadlock, so he went back to the armory in pursuit of a silver weapon. Those would paralyse a Mencur-Besh, unfortunately they only had coins, so he went back to try and jam them in one of the many serious wounds he had inflicted on Claw. Thankfully, before he could pull off this risky maneuver, Astro shattered Claw's arm, and he retreated before Kay could finish the job.

Tyron had suspected this was a "public reading" version of events (in other words, mostly but not entirely exaggerated to make Kay look good), but he still found himself tensing up at the mention of it.

And so, Lucy explained that Kay had warped in, roared instructions at her, and then came back looking half-dead already.

"But then, he saw the coins," Astro said, hurrying things along even though they had barely started. "And the important part is what he said afterwards. Please, tell Tyron exactly what he said."

Astro then clapped his hands together and rubbed them together furiously.

Lucy was visibly uneasy repeating what she had heard. "He said: 'The Prophet is dead, the rebellion is dead.' Then he gave off that look, desperate, more than anyone I've ever seen before. He said: 'Astro is gone. If Claw won't join them, I will gladly.' I just… he seemed serious."

"Oh no," gasped Kir.

"Oh…" said Tyron, unsure of what he was allowed to say. "I see."

He slowly turned his eyes to Astro, who rose swiftly and took Lucy by the arm.

"Thank you, Lucy," said the wizard. "That will be all, for the moment. We'll do our best to help Kay out of this rough patch."

They were at the door. Tyron saw the tension in Astro's muscles and aura as he stopped - he was only barely stopping himself from throwing Lucy out without a proper farewell.

"I've seen desperation in people before, a lot. But never like that. I haven't known Kay for long, but I feel that there is more to this. If… you know more but don't want to tell me that's fine too. I can understand why you wouldn't, there is already too much chaos in the Shelter and whatever it is, me knowing wouldn't help fix that." said Lucy.

Astro was quiet for a moment, then with forced, pained optimism:

"Oh, don't worry. I've known Kay for a long time, and I've seen him in this position many times before. He's a veteran, and he's suffered much, and it's easy in that line of work to wonder why exactly you should carry on suffering…" He trailed off. "He just needs some good friends at his side, and he'll be right as rain. Thank you for your concern. I'll let you know if you can be of any more help."

With that he politely bowed, and Lucy left. He leant back against the newly closed door, and clenched his eyes shut. He breathed in deeply, then exhaled, balling his hands into a fist as he did so. He took two steps towards Tyron, then doubled back to pat the door and check the ward again.

"Sorry," Astro said as he approached once more. "I don't want Shadow listening. We're barely speaking, as is."

He sat down beside Tyron on the bed.

"So," said Astro. "What do you think?"

"That's an open question," said Tyron, stalling.

Astro had told Tyron more or less the full story of what happened, so he was still piecing together everything. Kay was verging on suicidal. Last time, in his future, Kay had received a terminal injury and that motivated him to start settling scores. But he was also still protecting his friends and subjects at that point. Then, there had been a surgical strike where he lost a friend, Mini, and Astro was captured… There was the link!

Tyron felt a surge of satisfaction at joining the dots, then his spirits sank as he realised the significance of the picture they painted.

"You're afraid that, if you kick the bucket, Kay's going to go full tyrant," said Tyron with resignation. "That he'll give in to his paranoia and vengefulness and start picking fights with Shadow and whoever killed you."

"Fights he's not going to win," Astro confirmed. "Fights he barely even cares about winning but wants to be able to say he did something about before he died. Even when he was murdering Abby and Walt, he always did care about Public bloody Relations."

He walked over to the workbench and hunched over it as though reading something. Tyron had looked at it on the way in - it was empty. He didn't want Tyron to see him cry.

"So," Tyron asked. "What do we do?"

"Do we carry out a coup d'état, do you mean?" chuckled Astro.

Tyron had meant that, but he hated that he meant that.

"Could we not tell him what happens?"

"And destroy the timeline in the process? Possibly destroying multiple universes in the process? Unfortunately, no, that's the sort of suicidal gesture of destruction we're trying to avoid. "

"How do you know he's from your world, and not just a very similar one?"

"The Grey Ones say they were in our world continuously until my capture. We can't trust them, but we also can't take that risk."

Tyron thought some more.

"What if we told him, then wiped his memory later? You or one of the other wizards must know a spell, or a potion."

Astro whirled around furiously.

"You want me to condemn him to his fate? Give him the opportunity to change things, then tear that away? No, I've enough blood on my hands without his. You cannot ask me to do that. I refuse, and I refuse that right to anyone else." He lowered his eyes. "Besides, we can't know how he'd react. He might try and die nobly again, and that would only make matters worse."

"Have to coup," Kir affirmed.

Tyron raised his head, and was about to say, "How will we do it?" when there was a very forceful knock on the door.

They both froze and looked at each other, sharing the solidarity of hunted animals. Astro slowly approached the door, hands outstretched as though he were blind and looking for something to touch in order to find out where they stood. Finally, he opened the door a little, and scowled out.

A muffled exchange occurred, at the end of which Astro said: "I'll be with you shortly, as will General Tyron."

He closed the door.

"We'll discuss this later, Voidblade has located the portal facility. Kay wants to attack as soon as humanly possible."

Tyron nodded furiously, desperately hoping this might give them reason to change course. However, even then he probably knew they were being buffeted inevitably into a storm.