Deathstalker
"Or?"
"Precisely. I'll move us into a suitable low orbit, where we'll be less easily detected. You try again to raise the Wolfling on the comm."
Hazel shrugged, and turned back to the comm panels. She hadn't forgotten the last time Silence came to the Wolfling World, in pursuit of the price on their heads, and ended up destroying the Madness Maze, as well as trying to kill her and the other Maze people. They'd all made a kind of peace over Lionstone's body, in the Hell she'd made of her Court, but that had been politics, nothing more, and they'd all been careful to maintain a respectful distance, ever since. Some wounds and divisions can only be healed by time. Lots of it.
Owen moved the Sunstrider III into low orbit, his mind meshing easily with the ship's computer systems through his comm link, operating the navigation systems directly by his thoughts. When Moon rebuilt the Sunstrider III around the previous ship's stardrive, he hadn't been able to resist bringing the computers up to his own more-than-human standards. Once, Owen would have needed an AI to interface between his thoughts and the computers, to avoid unfortunate foul-ups through drifting attention, but a more disciplined mind was only one of the changes the Maze continued to work in him. He still missed Oz, though.
He settled the ship into a suitable orbit, raised all the shields, carefully disengaged his mind from the computers, and turned to Hazel. She'd pushed her chair back from the comm panels, and was shaking her head angrily. She glared at Owen and folded her arms sulkily across her chest.
"He must be able to hear us, but he's not answering. If I put any more power into the comm signal, the planet would start to melt. Maybe he's mad at us for not getting here sooner. Hell, maybe the baby woke up and disappeared him. We've no way of knowing what's going on down there!"
"No," said Owen slowly. "I think we'd know if the baby was awake. Either we'd feel it… or the universe might just start unraveling around us. As long as reality continues undisturbed, I think we can assume the baby is still safely sleeping. Wulfs probably just being precious; keeping us waiting till he's ready to talk to us. He never did have much use for humans."
"Well, we did wipe out all his species but him." said Hazel. "That had to make an impression. Giles was the only human the Wolfling ever had any time for. And you killed him."
"Quite," said Owen. "Let us hope very fervently that Wulf doesn't bear grudges. In the meantime, we'd better change our clothes. Our present attire, apart from being decidedly bloody and tattered from our time among the Blood Runners, is entirely unsuitable for the chill of the caverns of the Wolfling World."
"You know, you can be really fussy, sometimes," said Hazel, following Owen reluctantly into the cramped lounge area behind the bridge. "I mean, the Wolfling isn't going to care what we look like."
"I care," said Owen firmly, opening the clothes locker and rooting dubiously through the limited selection. "I am the Deathstalker, and I will not appear before the Wolfling looking like some tramp. It's a question of dignity."
Hazel sniffed, loudly, and decided to reject the first three things Owen showed her, on principle. There wasn't that much choice, really, the locker's stock being limited to what Moon and Owen had been able to acquire from Saint Bea's Mission and the original Church ship, but eventually Owen and Hazel settled on suitable clothing they could both live with, topped with heavy cloaks to keep out the cold. Hazel paused briefly as Owen swung his cloak about him, and admired himself in the locker's full-length mirror. The hackles on her neck were standing up. She'd seen Owen in that cloak before; on the two occasions when he'd appeared suddenly out of nowhere, first to save her life in the Standing on Virimonde, and then again later in the Mission to try and warn her about the Blood Runners. He'd been wearing these very clothes, but had looked tired and hurt and desperate. A slow chill wrapped itself around Hazel's heart as she began to understand what that meant, what it had to mean…
She might have said something, but suddenly every alarm on the bridge went off at once. Owen and Hazel ran back onto the bridge and bent over the control panels, looking for trouble. Nothing was obviously wrong, until Owen thought to check the sensor readings.
"It's a proximity warning," he said slowly. "Something's coming our way… something big. And it's moving bloody quickly."
"Could it be Silence, on the Dauntless?" said Hazel, one hand dropping automatically to the gun at her hip.
"I don't think so. The sensor readings make no sense at all. I'm switching to long range. That should put something on the viewscreen."
Shapes began to appear on the screen, and Owen sucked in a sharp breath. Hazel was strangely silent, moving to stand as close as she could to Owen. On the viewscreen, great shapes were gathering beyond the Wolfling World like vultures over something dying. Huge ships, the size of mountains or small moons, with insane structures and convoluted shapes that sucked the eye in uneasy directions. There seemed no real edge or end to them, as though they were still, always, just dropping out of hyperspace into normal reality. And between and around these awful ships, strange monstrous shapes; alive, aware, and completely unprotected in the cold vacuum of space. Some were almost as big as the ships, vast alien creatures with eyes like spotlights, and barbed tentacles that stretched for miles. There were claws and teeth and staring eyes in repulsive entities the size of cities, that shouldn't, couldn't, exist. They shone with their own unhealthy light, vast shapes and horrid creatures without number, gathering silently on all sides of the beleaguered planet.
The Recreated had come to the Wolfling World.
"Jesus," said Hazel softly. "We are in deep shit. Look at the size of those things… This just isn't possible… I mean, how do they even survive out there without ships?"
"This is where they live," said Owen. "Their home. Maybe they don't need ships, here. But there's something… wrong, about those monsters. There's no way they evolved in open space. Claws, tentacles, and eyes are planetary aspects. They must have evolved on some world, originally."
"Typical historian," said Hazel, without heat. "I don't give a damn about the Recreated's past, I want to know what they're doing here, right now. And may I also remind you we don't have any guns on this miserable cobbled-together rustbucket?"
"Probably just as well," said Owen. "They're not actually threatening us, as yet. With our shields up, we may be too small to draw their attention. Start shooting at them, and we might just get them interested in us. I think I'd like to avoid that, if at all possible. I say we stay very calm and very quiet, and hope they overlook us."
Hazel sniffed. "For once, I find myself in complete agreement with you. I don't think even a full-sized starcruiser would last long against that many nightmares. But how are we going to get down to the planet, without them noticing?"
The viewscreen chimed politely, making them both jump, alerting them to an incoming message. Owen quickly changed the screen from sensor input to the comm systems, and the disturbing gathering on the screen vanished, to be replaced by the great shaggy head and shoulders of the Wolfling. The skull had a definite lupine quality, but the face was still unsettlingly human. Wulf smiled, revealing sharp and unpleasant teeth, his eyes fixed and direct, a predator's gaze.
"I've been waiting for you to get here, Deathstalker. We must talk. There are many things we need to discuss, before the end."
"The end?" said Hazel sharply, just a little miffed at not being addressed too. "The end of what?"
"Everything, possibly." The Wolfling didn't seem too upset at the prospect. His grin widened, showing even more teeth, looking less like a smile all the time.
"Is it the baby?" said Owen. "Is he waking up?"
"Oh yes," said the Wolfling, almost casually. "And has been, for some time now. He was sleeping so very deeply, and he's had a long rise back to consciousness. But soon he will be fully awake, and by then we must have decided what to do. Join me, and we will talk of many things, before the end."
"In case you hadn't noticed," Hazel said acidly, "we are currently sur
rounded by all kinds of weird shit, some of them with teeth you wouldn't believe, and with the good God only knows how much firepower between them. How are we supposed to get to you?"
"The teleport systems are still working," Wulf said calmly. "The Deathstalker installed them long ago, and they still function. Giles always planned for the future. When you are ready, I'll have them bring you to me."
Owen shut off the comm sound for a moment, so he could talk privately with Hazel. "Now that is interesting. I'd always assumed the Last Standing teleported us down to the planet, the last time we were here; not the other way around. The power in those old systems must be incredible. I wonder what other surprises my dear departed ancestor might have left behind."
Hazel frowned. "Speaking of the departed, do you suppose Wulf knows Giles is dead?"
"He must, by now. And that I killed him. He just might be inviting us down so he can take his revenge on me."
"Let him try. He's big, but we've been through the Maze."
"So has he. More than once. Just because we never saw him manifest any powers, it doesn't mean he hasn't got any."
Hazel frowned. "Now that is an unpleasant thought. All right; how do you want to play this?"
"Very carefully. And extremely diplomatically." Owen turned the sound back on, and smiled cheerfully at the Wolfling. "We're ready to come down, Sir Wulf. Will our ship be all right, up here alone, surrounded by the Recreated?"
"It's too small for them to be concerned with," said the Wolfling. "The Recreated are always here, in the Darkvoid. They belong here. They may leave, but some are always here."
Owen frowned, as a thought struck him. "We never saw any sign of them, the first time we passed through the Darkvoid."
"They were hiding," said the Wolfling. "They remembered the Last Standing. It frightened them."
He broke off contact, and the screen went blank. Owen looked at Hazel. "The Last Standing frightened the Recreated!"
"Not the castle," said Hazel. "It was who the Standing belonged to. Giles Deathstalker. It always comes back to him, and the schemes and conspiracies he set in motion, all those centuries ago."
"Then I suppose it's up to me to finally put an end to them," said Owen. "The last of his Family. The last Deathstalker."
And then they both suddenly and silently vanished away, gone from the bridge of the Sunstrider III between one moment and the next, and all around the vast and awful shapes of the Recreated stirred slowly, as though troubled by some half-felt premonition.
Not long after, another ship came to the Wolfling World; that famous and much-traveled starcruiser, the Dauntless. On the bridge, Captain John Silence sat stiffly in his command chair, eyes fixed on the main viewscreen before him. The Dauntless had been threading its way through the huge alien forms of the Recreated for some time now, guns and shields at the ready, but so far the ship had gone entirely unchallenged. Which was just as well, in Silence's opinion. He wouldn't have backed his entire weapons systems against even one of the huge alien vessels. The Dauntless moved slowly forward, sliding silently past and between the Recreated, and Silence couldn't help feeling just a little annoyed that none of the Recreated even deigned to notice them.
The pardoned traitor called Carrion stood calmly beside the command chair, leaning idly on his power lance. His dark, shadowed eyes studied the alien shapes on the screen with interest, apparently entirely unmoved. The rest of the bridge crew were so stiff and strained you could have struck matches off them, and the general atmosphere on the bridge was tense almost beyond bearing, but no one even looked like cracking. They were a good crew, and Silence was very proud of them.
"What the hell are all those Recreated doing here?" he said quietly to Carrion. "Why aren't they attacking Golgotha, with the rest of their kind?"
"Clearly, something on the planet below holds their attention," said Carrion, not looking away from the screen. "Something they consider more important than Humanity's imminent destruction. Which suggests the rumors are true. The Madness Maze has returned. And with it, perhaps, the Darkvoid Device."
"Let's hope so," said Silence. "It's the only weapon left that might help us against the Recreated, now that Diana's failed to convert them. The Device could be Humanity's last hope."
"Really?" said Carrion. "I always thought that was the Deathstalker."
"If he's even here," said Silence. "And I don't know I entirely trust him in this. The last time a Deathstalker and the Device got together, they wiped out billions of innocent lives. And he has a history with the Madness Maze I can't even begin to understand. I only went partway through, and it scared the shit out of me. It killed my men as I watched, and I couldn't do a damned thing to save them. No; we'll deal with the Deathstalker if we have to, if he's alive and here, but we concentrate on the Device. At least we've got plenty of targets here to test it on."
"Assuming we can use it without destroying everything else in the process," said Carrion. "Including us. Though that would be one fine last joke."
"You always did have a weird sense of humor, Sean," said Silence. "Navigator; select a low orbit, and move us into position. Preferably well away from any of those… things, out there."
"Aye, sir." The navigation officer's voice was steady, and his hands moved surely over the control panels. Only the paleness of his face betrayed his inner tension.
The Dauntless eased into orbit around the Wolfling World, and still none of the Recreated showed any reaction. Silence, and the rest of his crew, began to breathe a little more easily. And then Hemdall, the ship's AI, raised its voice politely, and everyone jumped just a little.
"You asked to be advised of any other human ship in the vicinity, Captain. Sensors are picking up what could be a small craft, also in low orbit."
"Put it on the screen," said Silence. He studied the ship as its image replaced the Recreated, and nodded thoughtfully. "Looks like it was bolted together from half a dozen different vessels, but the general shape's familiar. That's a Sunstrider. The Deathstalker got here before us. Damn. Hemdall; scan the ship for life readings."
"None detected, Captain. The ship appears to be entirely deserted."
Silence frowned, and then rose sharply to his feet. "That means he's already gone down, into the interior of the planet. Probably already making plans with the Wolfling."
Carrion moved forward to stand beside him. "Does it matter that he got here first? He is Humanity's hero. What could he have to say to the Wolfling that might worry us?"
"Who knows?" said Silence. "He's a Deathstalker. I never believed he was really dead. Owen's always had his own agenda."
"Unlike us," suggested Carrion.
Silence glared at him. "We are following Parliament's orders. After Jack Random went crazy, I don't trust any of the Maze people anymore."
"You went into the Maze," said Carrion, his voice entirely unjudgmental. Silence shrugged uneasily.
"I never went all the way through. Never… changed, the way they did. I'm still human. And Humanity needs the Darkvoid Device. If we can work with the Deathstalker, so well and good. If not…"
"Yes?"
"Damned if I know. There haven't been many who could make Owen Deathstalker do a single damned thing he didn't want to. All I can realistically do is appeal to his sense of honor and duty. In his own way, Owen has always been an honorable man. But he's also a wild card, in a game where the wrong move could spell death for the whole of the Empire. Owen has never understood or cared for the practical realities."
"Unlike you, Captain?"
"Oh, I've always been a practical man, Sean. That's why the Deathstalker's the official hero of the Empire, and I'm still just a Captain. But in the end, I was the one Parliament trusted with its orders; trusted to save Humanity. They know I'll get the job done, no matter what."
"And Hazel d'Ark?"
Silence winced. "Let's not talk about her. I have my orders. No one is to be allowed to interfere with this mission."
"You never change, C
aptain," said Carrion.
And then they both suddenly vanished from the bridge, plucked away by powerful forces in the depths of the planet below, teleported down into the cold heart of the Wolfling World.
They all arrived together, in the same moment, four human figures materializing in the midst of a great green forest. The surrounding trees stood tall and proud, draped in heavy swaths of summer greenery. Angled shafts of golden sunlight dropped down through the canopy of interlocking branches high overhead. Dust motes swirled lazily in the glimmering light. The air was full of the rich scents of earth and mulch and leaves and growing things. But for all its grandeur the forest was still and silent, with not a sound anywhere. This was not a real wood, not a natural thing. The Wolflings had created the forest long and long ago, so they could have somewhere to run and play and hunt. Now they were all gone, save for Wulf, the last of his kind, but the forest remained.
Owen and Hazel looked at Silence and Carrion, who looked right back at them. After a moment that seemed to stretch and stretch, Owen and Silence straightened up a little, and ostentatiously moved their hands away from their guns. They nodded slightly to each other, as close as two such old rivals could ever come to bowing. Respect had never been a problem between them; only politics. And very different ideas of duty. Hazel sniffed loudly, and moved her hand from her gun to her belt. Carrion leaned casually on his power lance.
"Well," said Owen finally. "It's been a long time since we last met, hasn't it, Captain?"
"Not since Lionstone's last Court," said Silence. "Just as well really. We never did have anything in common, except the things we fought over."
"Who's your friend in black?" said Hazel.
"I am Carrion; a traitor and destroyer of worlds. I bring bad luck."
Hazel looked him over, unimpressed. "Fancies himself, doesn't he?"
Silence and Owen exchanged an understanding look, acknowledging a shared history of having to make allowances for their companions. Hazel and Carrion caught the look, but didn't understand it, which was probably just as well. To avoid having to say anything else for a moment, they all looked around them, and the silent forest looked back. The continuing quiet was eerie, disturbing.