Deathstalker Return (51 page)

And now there was only one layer of defensive tech left: the untried, mysterious alien tech supplied by Mog Mor. No one on the planet even knew what it was, or what it was supposed to do.

In Orpheus City, capital of Heracles IV, all hell was breaking loose. The population was torn between mass prayer sessions, rioting in the streets, hiding in bomb shelters, and the occasional mass suicide pact. All those who could leave had already done so. The last few ships were still racing away from Heracles IV, and praying they’d put enough distance between them and the planet to be able to drop into the safety of hyperspace before it was too late. But right in the heart of the city, three Paragons strolled down the main street, passing a bottle of wormwood brandy back and forth between them, and looking curiously up at the sky. Sent by Finn Durandal to make a first-hand report on the Terror’s approach, all three were possessed by the uber-esper Screaming Silence. Once, their names had been Kelly Fox, Yvonne Church, and Avraam Dusk, but now someone else watched the skies through their eyes and waited interestedly to see what would happen. Screaming Silence had had a pleasant enough time waiting—dining and drinking of the finest the world had to offer, sleeping with each other till they were sore because no one else would come near them, and otherwise indulging the uber-esper’s never-ending appetites by proxy. The Paragons themselves were becoming rather damaged, but that didn’t matter. They would die here anyway, once the Terror drew too close and Screaming Silence had to leave.

Finn had sent them on the grounds that since they were already mentally controlled, they might be immune to the Terror’s deadly voice; the never-ending scream that drove whole populations insane. He was really intrigued to see what would happen.

The herald plowed through the last of the standard defenses as though they weren’t even there, and came at last to the Mog Mor line. Activated by its approach, the alien tech unfolded, great gleaming shapes that blossomed into vast crystal flowers. Strange energies seethed around them, and space itself rippled and wavered. Terrible forces seized upon the herald, and strove to force it out of normal space and back into whatever hell it came from. Sinkholes and singularities flared briefly, pock-marking space, only to collapse in on themselves and disappear, ignored by the herald. One by one the Mog Mor devices overloaded and disintegrated, and the herald flew on, untouched.

From a place that was not a place, it came—a nightmare given shape and form, heading inexorably for the sun of Heracles IV.

Screaming Silence reached out curiously with her mind, forcing her psionic abilities through the limited minds of her thralls. They cried out in agony, blood leaking from their nostrils and eyes, but she didn’t care. Her thoughts rose up from the planet to touch the coming herald, and then immediately withdrew, shocked and sickened. She couldn’t bear to be near it, even for a moment. She slammed back into the three Paragons’ minds, and then abandoned them, fleeing back to Logres, and safety.

The plan had been for Screaming Silence to stay until the very last moment, until the herald’s vicious spawn came howling out of the sun, and perhaps even until the appearance of the Terror itself; but one glimpse of the herald’s terrible true nature was enough to panic and terrorize the uber-esper. She turned and ran, abandoning her thralls to their fates, and two women and one man cried out in shock and horror and disgust at what had been done to them. They clung to each other, shaking and shuddering, soiled beyond hope at what the abomination had done in their minds and through their bodies. But at long last they were themselves again, and because they were Paragons, their spirits were not broken.

Kelly Fox was short, slender, gamine. Pale of face, with almost colorless blond hair. There was blood and vomit down the front of her tattered tunic. Yvonne Church was a giant Valkyrie of a woman, with a wide fan of jet-black hair, olive skin and sharp patrician features. Her blouse was ripped open to the waist, and she pulled it shut with trembling hands. Avraam Dusk had skin so dark it was almost blue, wrapped in what had once been pure white robes. White hair fuzzed his skull in places, where the uber-esper hadn’t bothered to shave it regularly. One of the fingers on his left hand was missing. The uber-esper had bitten it off and eaten it, just to savor the experience.

Weakened, sickened, almost maddened by the experience of their long possession, they held each other for a while, drawing what comfort they could from simple human closeness, and then they stood apart, and looked around them at a city in chaos. People were running and screaming in the streets, while all kinds of traffic roared uselessly in every direction. Looting had begun, and fires were breaking out. People had started jumping from high buildings. The sky was purple now, with bloodred clouds covering the sun, as though to hide the vulnerable sun from the awful thing that was coming.

“It’ll be here soon,” said Kelly, rubbing the palms of her hands against her hips as though they would never be clean again. “We have to do something.”

“We have to get offworld,” said Avraam. “We must let the Empire know that ELFs are possessing the Paragons.”

“No,” said Yvonne. “First, we have to save Heracles Four.”

Avraam looked at her. “I’m open to suggestions.”

Kelly was crying now, tears rolling down her jerking cheeks. “There’s nothing we can do. She left us nothing. She . . .”

“We know,” said Avraam. “We all remember what she made us do. But we have to be strong now, Kelly. These people need us. That’s what being a Paragon is all about: being strong when others can’t.”

“You always were a pompous bastard, Avraam.” But the tears stopped, and Kelly nodded jerkily. “All right. Paragons, first and foremost. But what the hell can we do?”

“We launch our ship from the starport,” said Yvonne. “No one will have got past the defenses on our ship. We go up, we drive straight at the herald, wait until we’re right on top of it, and then overload the stardrive. I don’t care what the herald is; an exploding stardrive could blow out a sun like a candle.”

“Theoretically,” said Kelly. “No one’s ever actually tried it, as far as I know.”

“No one’s ever had to, before,” said Avraam.

They looked at each other for a while, and then Yvonne shrugged. “What the hell; it’s a good day to die.”

“Suicide is a sin,” said Kelly.

“Not if you take your enemy with you,” said Avraam.

“What is death, but a release from our memories?” said Yvonne. “For us, death will be a comfort.”

“You always were a spooky cow,” said Kelly, but for the first time there was a hint of a smile on her pale lips.

They strode off through the city, ignoring the panicked souls running blindly around them. It wasn’t that far to the main starport, after they commandeered a car. They had to kill the driver to get it, but they couldn’t let themselves think about that. Every time they saw a floating news camera, they slowed the car and called out to the camera, trying to get word out of what had been done to them and the other Paragons. But every time they tried, the cameras shut themselves down. They’d been programmed to do that. Finn thought of everything.

The Paragons roared across the empty landing pads, and pulled up next to their ship, the
Harrow.
It didn’t take them long to power up the ship, and soon they were punching through the planet’s atmosphere, heading for space and the herald. They sat close together on the bridge, still drawing what comfort they could from each other. Sometimes they held hands. It helped. They were all tired, deathly tired, in body and in spirit, but duty and honor drove them on. That, and one last chance to strike a blow at Humanity’s greatest enemy.

The herald soon showed up on their screens. Easily a mile long, the details of its shape seethed endlessly, as though it crawled with maggots, or as though it was unable to settle on just one distinct form. It was utterly alien in shape and nature, like some monstrous idea downloaded into reality to drive everything mad. Yvonne turned the viewscreen off. They didn’t need to see it.

When the
Harrow
drew near enough to the herald that the three Paragons could actually feel its presence, in their minds and in their souls, they said their good-byes to each other in firm, calm voices, and then Kelly opened the dampers on the stardrive and let it run wild. The
Harrow
blew apart, ship and crew consumed in a moment by the terrible energies released. Space itself shuddered under the impact of the explosion. And when it was all over, the herald flew on, untouched and untroubled, with its course unaltered, heading straight for the sun to give birth.

 

 

The whole Empire watched through the remote news cameras as the herald plunged into the sun, the fiery heart incubating and then birthing the horde that would destroy the planet. They came out of the sun howling, and descended on Heracles IV. Round and round the world they went, in a never-ending screaming that brought madness and horror to all who heard it. Death and destruction raged across the world, and no one was spared. And when Hell was finally fully in session, and the damned danced crazily in the flames of what had once been their cities, the Terror came. It unfolded into their reality like a poisonous flower, vaster than the sun and more deadly, to feast on the horror it had created. And when there was nothing left on Heracles IV, the Terror returned to the place that wasn’t a place, and the herald moved on towards its next target—leaving Heracles IV burning like a coal in the night.

 

 

And all across the Empire, on planet after planet, there was panic and rioting and the killing of scapegoats, and mass migrations on every ship that could carry people away from the Rim and towards the center of the Empire. At the very center, at the heart of the homeworld, the Parade of the Endless on Logres, Finn Durandal was quietly furious. He’d lost Heracles IV, the Paragons had delivered nothing useful before they died, thanks to the cowardly uber-esper, and with Tel Markham gone and nowhere to be found, Finn had no one to take out his rage on. Maybe he should get a dog, or a cat. He felt like kicking something.

He and Anne Barclay already had a speech prepared. They gave it to James, who delivered it at the House of Parliament with all his usual style and bravado. It was a good speech, carefully crafted to take the people’s minds off the enormity of what had just happened by giving them a scapegoat to take out their fears on. Finn, together with Anne and through James, put the blame squarely on Clan Deathstalker, on the planet Virimonde. Finn claimed that the Clan could have helped defend the Empire against this terrible threat, but had chosen not to. That they possessed secret Family information on what had really happened to the long lost Owen Deathstalker, and where he might be found, but that they had deliberately chosen to withold this vital intelligence, until they got what they wanted: Lewis officially pardoned, and made King in Douglas’s place. A true King, an Emperor in fact. Finn had of course righteously refused to give in to this blackmail, but now the Clan must be forced to give up what it knew, before the Terror could strike again. In his speech, James attacked the whole Clan, but most especially its current heads: Roland and Laura Deathstalker, parents of the outlawed Lewis.

The Imperial fleet already had starcruisers in orbit around Virimonde. They merely awaited Parliament’s command, and then they would land attack troops in force, and take control of Deathstalker Standing, by force if necessary. Roland and Laura Deathstalker would be arrested, and as many of their Family as necessary, and required to give up all the secret knowledge they possessed, on pain of their lives. Parliament roared its approval, and the order was given. Fear is a great motivator. It might have been different if King Douglas had been there, to be a voice of reason, but he was mad, and a murderer, and imprisoned awaiting trial.

Clan Deathstalker put out a response immediately, denying any secret knowledge of Owen’s fate, but nobody listened. And by that time, the troops were already landing.

They went down in armored pinnaces, just in case, their numbers smothering the landing pads of Virimonde’s main starport. From there, it was only a short forced march to Deathstalker Standing. The castle stood on top of a tall, rugged cliff, with the pounding ocean at its back and a broad plain before the main entrance. The attack troops drew up in great numbers facing the closed and sealed main gates, filling the plain with their eager, brutal faces and ranked energy weapons. There were Church Militant crosses on their battle armor, and every one of them was Pure Humanity to the hilt. Finn had chosen these soldiers well—hard-core fanatics who would not be dissuaded by even the most reasonable of arguments. They were led by the Paragon Lola Martinez, possessed by the uber-esper Screaming Silence, eager for a chance to prove herself after her panicked flight from Heracles IV.

Lola was tall and willowy, with flaming red hair falling in waves to her waist, held out of her face by a filagreed silver headband. Her body armor was scored with ancient runic symbols that hadn’t protected her after all. She wore her proud purple cloak and a broad flappy leather hat, tilted over one eye. She smiled and laughed a lot, for no obvious reason, and there was something about the light in her bright green eyes that made even the hardened attack troopers give her plenty of room. They still jumped to obey her every order, though. She was Finn’s voice on Virimonde.