Deathstalker Return (60 page)

“You look different,” said Brett. “More . . .
you.
”

“Why thank you, Brett. I feel like I could climb a mountain while singing an aria.” She looked at Silence. “Is this how it was for you?”

“It’s different for everyone,” said Silence. “We all became more than we were, more than human. I only hope you people have better luck.”

Lewis strode calmly through the branching corridors of the Madness Maze, never at a loss over which way to go. He knew where he was going. It was like coming home after being away for a long, long time. It was also like walking through a furnace, while the stoked fires burned away his imperfections. There was pain, and loss, but he embraced them as the hot steel accepts the tempering that turns it into a sword blade. Lewis was a warrior born, and now, finally, he understood why. The corridors unfolded before him like the pulsing crenellations of a living brain, like the blossoming of the flower at the heart of the soul, until finally he came to the guarded center of the Madness Maze.

Everything stood still. A perfect moment, at the heart of the storm. Lewis felt calm and secure, like a small child in his mother’s arms. He felt he could have just stood there forever, freed from the demands of need or conscience or ambition; but he was a Deathstalker, and duty and destiny were not his to put aside. He looked slowly about him. He was in a wide circular space, composed mostly of pure white light. In the exact center of that space stood a great glowing crystal, some four feet in diameter. Lewis walked over and looked into it, and inside the crystal, in its warm golden heart, he found a tiny human baby. The babe looked to be about a month old, perfectly formed, his blurred face only hinting at the person he might eventually become. His eyes were closed, and he breathed slowly and calmly, as though he had all the time in the world. One thumb was tucked securely into the slightly pouting mouth.

“Well, took you long enough to get here,” said a familiar voice.

Lewis looked up, and wasn’t entirely surprised to find the small gray figure of Vaughn standing right beside him. A small gray hand with fingers missing came out of a sleeve and waved briefly at him before disappearing again.

“I might have known you’d turn up,” said Lewis. “Any chance of some straight answers, just for a change? Like, who is this baby, and what is he doing here?”

“That is Deathstalker brat,” said Vaughn. “Very old. Son of Giles, by someone else’s wife. Been here eleven hundred years, and never had his nappy changed once. Should get out more, see universe, party hard, but no. Too young. Still being born, really.”

Lewis sighed. “I don’t suppose there’s anyone else around here I could talk to? I thought not.” He looked thoughtfully at the baby. “He’s really been here for eleven hundred years? Sleeping at the heart of the Maze? Why hasn’t he . . . grown up?”

“Only looks like baby, dummy. What we see is tip of ice-burg. Rest is hidden from us, and probably just as well too.”

Lewis glared at Vaughn. “Speaking of people who aren’t all they seem to be; I saw Vaughn’s grave at Lachrymae Christi. So who, or what, are you really?”

“Good question,” said the small gray figure. “Let me just put on someone more comfortable.”

The small form fell apart into floating mists, and then reassembled into the familiar muscular figure of Roland Deathstalker. Lewis stared at the image of his father, who smiled easily back at him.

“You’re not my father,” said Lewis.

“No, I’m not. But I thought you might find this image easier to talk to. Vaughn has his uses, but his speech patterns drive me crazy. And he has personal habits you really don’t want to hear about. Hopefully this figure will put you more at your ease.”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” said Lewis, refusing to be sidetracked. “What are you?”

“I’m the one with all the answers, boy, so don’t get snotty with me. Now, I have many names, but one nature. Many faces, but one perspective. And if you find that confusing, think how I feel. I am older than the First Empire, though in rather better shape. I was here when your species were still learning the advantages of standing upright, and the joys of beating each other’s heads in with big sticks. I created the Madness Maze, working under very specific instructions, and I was here when Owen finally came through the Maze, looking for answers. He didn’t like everything I had to tell him, but unfortunately I can only deal in the truth. My form may vary, but my programming is inviolable.

“Yes, I know, I know; what am I? Well, as far as your extremely limited thinking can comprehend, I am an ancient semisentient artificial construct, left here by the last remnants of a once proud and mighty race, as they passed at speed through your galaxy to somewhere hopefully a bit safer.”

“They met the Terror, didn’t they?” said Lewis. “They were running from the Terror.”

“Got it in one, Deathstalker. Take a prize from any shelf you like. While they were indeed once great and powerful, and vast beyond your understanding, they were still no match for the Terror when it came. Their whole civilization was destroyed. All their worlds and all their works, gone to nothing. Only a handful survived, fleeing across the galaxies. They left me here, a living recording, to warn of what was coming, and prepare.”

“What were they like, this other race?” said Lewis.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know. Not unless you’re into mental projectile vomiting. Their nature took them in directions your species haven’t even developed the concepts for yet. Following their orders, I have struggled to raise as many species as possible to a point where they might conceivably have some chance of standing up against the Terror. Following my programming, I have force-fed them evolution through the Madness Maze, but I can’t say it’s been particularly successful. A surprisingly large number of species self-destruct spectacularly when forced to confront the true nature of things in general, and the universe in particular. The Grendels missed the point completely, the Ashrai preferred to become gardeners, and I don’t even want to talk about Mog Mor. Only Humanity has shown real potential, and even there it’s been a lot of two steps forwards, one step back. Some days I’d like to take your entire race and give it a good slap round the back of the head.”

“Can we please get to the point?” said Lewis.

“Sorry,” said Roland. “But it’s not often I get the chance to show off, and being the
one who knows
is so empowering! You see, I’m not actually allowed to do much myself, being essentially just a recording with a fairly strict set of parameters. The best I can do is sort of nudge certain gifted individuals in the right direction. Owen was the best. He was everything I could have hoped for. Someday, he might even have gone face-to-face with the Terror . . . But he died, saving Humanity from the wrath of the Recreated.”

“So he is definitely dead?” said Lewis. “You’re sure?”

“Oh, yes. I saw it happen. But you’re going to bring him back.”

“Where’s Jesamine?” Lewis said suddenly. “I just realized she isn’t with me. We came in together. Why isn’t she here? She’s the practical one.”

“Not everyone gets this far, boy. Most don’t even survive the opening gambits. Ten thousand eager volunteers came traipsing in here, wanting to be heroes like Owen, and most of them died. The few that crawled out alive probably wished they hadn’t. You see, the Maze can’t help people, can’t change them, work its magic on them, unless they’re ready and willing to embrace the change. The ones that died, or mutated, were so desperate to hang on to their precious limited humanity, or their provincial ideas about how the universe really works, that they couldn’t, wouldn’t, transcend. Evolution can be a frightening thing when it’s thrust upon you. Essentially, they chose madness or death rather than face the scary unknown of post-human existence. It’s not the Maze’s fault. The monsters you saw outside did it to themselves; their fears made manifest in their flesh. They became the personifications of their own guilts and preoccupations.”

“That’s horrible,” said Lewis. “Will I . . .”

“No,” said Roland. “You adapted surprisingly quickly, but then, you’re a Deathstalker. Your changes are already complete, even if you haven’t learned to access them yet.”

“How did you ever get to meet my father?” said Lewis. “You look and sound just like him.”

“Oh, I get around. Really. You’d be surprised. I am a shape-shifting alien, after all. But mostly I’m filling in your father’s details from what I see in your mind.”

“Wait a minute, you can read my mind?”

“Trust me, Lewis, I have no desire to go rummaging. It’s a wonder to me you can find anything in that mess. Now, enough of the small talk. The time has come to restore Owen Deathstalker to the Empire that needs him. And only you can do that.”

“What really did happen to Owen?” said Lewis. “I’ve heard so many stories, so many versions . . . did he really die on Mistworld, saving us all through his own sacrifice?”

“Yes,” said Roland. “He really did. Owen never was one to shrink from what was necessary. No matter what it cost him. The Maze, together with that incredibly powerful baby there, sent Owen back through time, past the Pale Horizon, and the Recreated followed him. They fought one last battle, in the past, in the grimy back streets of Mistport, and Owen won. But he’d used up all his power, and he was stranded there, years away from his own time. And then . . . Well. See for yourself.”

 

 

Lewis and Roland were suddenly standing in a dead-end square in Mistport. There was snow and dirty trampled slush everywhere, along with filth and grime. A thick pervasive fog pearled the air. It should have been bitter cold, but Lewis couldn’t feel anything. He slowly realized that he and Roland were pale misty things themselves, like ghosts from the future.
I haven’t even been born yet,
Lewis thought slowly. “Remember, we can’t interfere,” Roland said quietly. “We can only observe. We’re not really here. Look—it begins.”

Owen Deathstalker staggered into the dead-end square, breathing hard. His clothes were torn and bloodied, topped with a ragged fur cloak. His face was gaunt and tired, as though he’d been running forever. He looked like death. He stopped and bent over, his lungs heaving for air, and he leaned on his sword to steady himself. He looked like a lion that had been pursued and harried by jackals. There was the sound of many approaching footsteps, pounding in the snow and slush. Owen’s head snapped round, and he straightened up, his sword and gun at the ready. And worn out and exhausted as he was, at that moment Owen Deathstalker looked every inch the warrior Lewis had heard about his whole life.

The animals came spilling into the square. Ragged, stunted people, with drugged fires in their eyes and the anticipation of blood in their mouths. They howled like beasts, and threw themselves at Owen. And he went forwards to meet them, swinging his sword like the hero he was. The odds were overwhelming, dozens to one, and Owen was almost totally burned out from everything he’d already been through. Anyone could see that. But Owen fought anyway, refusing to be beaten, because he was a Deathstalker, and that was what Deathstalkers did.

Owen blew a bloody hole in the pack with his disrupter, killing three of them in a moment, and setting fire to the furs of those around them. The animals kept coming anyway. Owen was quickly in and among them, cutting them down with swift strokes of his sword. And still the animals pressed forwards, knives and lengths of chain flailing, forcing Owen back, step by step. Until there was nowhere left for him to go. His back slammed up against a stone wall, and the animals cried out as they fell upon him, swamping him with their numbers. Owen swung his sword in short deadly arcs, defiant to the last, and then one of them ducked under his swing and stabbed him in the side. Owen cried out, in shock as much as pain, and then they were all over him. Their knives plunged into his body again and again. Blood fell thickly, staining the filthy snow. Owen’s legs gave way, and he slid down the wall. And still they kept at him, pushing each other aside in their eagerness. They kept on stabbing him with their dirty knives, his body shuddering under the impact of so many blows. Owen cried out again, but his voice was lost in the vicious baying of the pack.

Lewis cried out, and ran forwards. He cut at the animals with his sword, but they didn’t feel it. He kicked and hit them, but they didn’t know he was there. Owen was sitting in the blood-soaked snow now, his chin resting on his chest, the last of his blood running out of his mouth along with the last of his breath. Someone stole his sword and ran off with it. Lewis fell to his knees, crying angry helpless tears. And on his knees, in snow he couldn’t feel, he watched Owen Deathstalker die. After he was dead, they stole his boots.

Lewis cried hot, heavy tears. His sword hung uselessly in his hand. “It’s all been for nothing,” he said finally. “All of it. He really did die here.”

“Yes, he did,” said Roland. “But the story isn’t over yet. Keep watching.”

Time speeded up, in that squalid little dead-end square. The animals stripped Owen of everything worth stealing, and then they disappeared back into the night. The mists eddied this way and that. Owen lay dead in the bloody snow, his noble body gashed and punctured in many places, and soaked in his own gore. And that was how the organleggers found him. In Mistport there was always a thriving business in spare parts for transplant surgery, in those long ago days. Body banks were of course illegal, but then so were a great many other everyday activities in Mistport. The body snatchers took Owen’s body away, and Lewis and Roland followed them, unobserved.

The organleggers’ warehouse wasn’t far. They took Owen’s body inside, locking the door carefully behind them. Lewis and Roland ghosted easily through the locked door, and watched as Owen’s body was dumped into a refrigerated tank, to preserve it. Within a few hours, automated blades and saws would render the body down into its component parts, ready for marketing. The body snatchers laughed together, and walked away. Lewis and Roland watched them go. Lewis felt drained, worn out.