Deathstalker

  The baby lay in the heart of the Madness Maze, and because he was so very young, with so few built-in preconceptions and limitations, the Maze was able to change him in ways far beyond any others it embraced. He blossomed, and grew, and became very powerful. He became so much more than any other of his species, and laughed aloud in delight at the wonders of the universe unfolding before him. He thought it was all just a game. And when he had learned all his small consciousness could tolerate, he went to sleep, to consider what he had learned.

  And to wonder what he would do next.

  I watched, from the outside, and dreamed of what I would have done to my enemy Humanity, with such power. But the Maze had bound me to it, and I could not leave its side. I couldn't even join your rebellion, when you were kind enough to ask.

  Now at this time, there was another rebellion going on. The old Empire was not perfect, for all its grandness, and a group of planets had banded together to defy the Emperor's authority, and demand better treatment. Ulric could have declared war against them, and sent his mighty Fleet to punish them, but the planets were valuable for many reasons, and well defended enough that his Fleet would have suffered badly in any direct conflict. So Giles saw an opportunity. He sent a message to the Emperor, through certain mutual friends, offering a certain proposition. In return for a Pardon, for himself and his child, the Deathstalker would put an end to the rebellion. Guaranteed. Ulric would have refused, but on military matters even a cuckolded Emperor must listen to his advisors, if he wishes to remain Emperor. There was a very real danger the small rebellion could become a large one if it were not smartly nipped in the bud. So Ulric reluctantly agreed.

  I took Giles to the entrance of the Madness Maze, or as close as he would go, and he called out to his son. The Maze gently woke the infant in its care, and the baby reached out instinctively to his father. Their minds made contact, and for the first time in a long time, I saw happiness in Giles's face. He persuaded his baby son that the nearby rebel planets were a threat to both of them, and frightened, the child lashed out at the rebels. You all know what happened next. The baby only flexed his power for a moment, but between one heartbeat and the next a thousand suns blinked out, and the Darkvoid was born. Thousands of planets grew cold, and everything on them died. Billions of men and women and children died, screaming. Horrified by what he had done, by what he had been persuaded to do, the baby cut off all contact with his father and put himself back to sleep, and would not be awakened. Giles called and called, but his son wouldn't listen to him anymore.

  For the first time I saw Giles weep, though whether for the loss of his son's love, or in frustration at how things had gone so terribly wrong, I never knew. He had been Warrior Prime, sworn to defend the Empire and Humanity, and he was now responsible for the death of billions. Whatever the cause, that day broke his heart. He was never the same after that. All he ever cared about from that day on was putting things right. Whatever it took.

  The Emperor howled to all his Court that he had been right all along, and no one disagreed. All Humanity was appalled at what the Deathstalker had done with his Darkvoid Device. The Emperor tore up the Pardons, and set the most powerful dogs at his command on the Deathstalker's trail. Even the mysterious Shadow Men, who had never been known to fail. Giles piloted the Last Standing to Shandrakor, old home of his family, to decoy his enemies away from his son, and the Madness Maze. He had plans for both of them, in the future. Someday, he believed, he would learn to control them both, and use them to make amends for the terrible thing he had done. But it was only when he had emerged from the newly formed Darkvoid, and was well on his way to Shandrakor, that he finally reestablished contact with his old allies, and discovered how much he was required to pay for his ambition.

  The Empress Hermoine was dead, executed by royal decree. His wife Marion was also dead, murdered by his estranged son Dram. Giles's very name had become a curse in the mouth of Humanity. I think he went a little mad, then, at the thought of how much he'd lost, at how all his plans had gone so horribly wrong. He sent assassins after his son Dram, tidied up the last of his affairs, and vanished his castle into the thick, deadly jungles of Shandrakor. There, he set up a conspiracy of his remaining Family and friends and allies, to slowly and carefully plot a foolproof rebellion against the Iron Throne. This time, everything would be planned in detail. Nothing would be allowed to go wrong. But it would take time. So Giles programmed the Last Standing's computers to take care of things while he was away, and put himself in stasis, to wait however long it took. Wait for some distant descendent to awaken him. And tell him that, finally, he would be able to overthrow the Iron Throne, make himself Emperor, and put everything right again.

  But he never got the chance. The descendent who awakened him, murdered him.

  But, meanwhile, back at Court… Dram killed his mother Marion to prove his loyalty to Ulric, to demonstrate how distanced he was from his treacherous father. He didn't want much from the Emperor, in return. He just wanted to be the new Warrior Prime. But the Emperor had had enough of murderous Deathstalkers. He named the son a monster like his father, put a death sentence on Dram and a bounty on his head, and Dram was forced to flee. His father's conspiracy would have nothing to do with him.

  Ulric gave orders for all the main members of Clan Deathstalker to be put to death. Many died, many more went underground. A distant cousin of the Emperor's choosing became head of the new Deathstalker Family. Giles's conspiracy survived, but it was never the same after that. Ulric would have liked to stamp out the whole line, root and branch, but the name, the heroic, already legendary name, had been useful before and might yet be again. The people did so love their precious heroes.

  Dram determined to find and kill his father, for many reasons, only to discover that Giles had escaped his reach, disappearing down the corridor of Time, into the future. So Dram put himself into stasis too, using an old secret bolthole on Golgotha that had once belonged to his father. I'm sure the irony pleased him. He didn't know more than nine centuries would pass before a team of engineers, excavating the depths of Lionstone's new Palace, found something entirely unexpected. Lionstone awoke Dram, probably not with a kiss, and found a kindred spirit. Monsters always recognize their own kind. Together they set in motion plans that would destroy young Owen Deathstalker's comfortable life, and send him off in search of his famous ancestor Giles. All they had to do was wait, and follow, and eventually Giles and the Darkvoid Device would fall into their hands. And then… power and revenge and punishment on a Humanity that had never really loved them.

  But during those nine centuries and more, rumors had persisted that a Deathstalker had been personally responsible for the creation of the Darkvoid. That the Device was just a convenient fiction, to hide a more terrible truth; that a man had somehow gained the power of such destruction. Leaks from inside the ongoing Deathstalker conspiracy seemed to confirm something along those lines. So when, some time later, the espers began secretly investigating their own powers and nature, the name and legend of what a Deathstalker might have done suddenly seemed entirely possible. Those rumors inspired what became the super-esper program, that led to the creation of the Mater Mundi. The search for individual super-espers produced only freaks and monsters, so the esper underground made contact with the Deathstalker conspiracy, and after that they worked together, each thinking it was using the other for its own purposes. But the inclusion of espers and later clones meant that the course and nature of the Deathstalker conspiracy was changed forever. Giles couldn't foresee everything. None of these people knew that really they were little more than puppets, their strings pulled, however distantly, by the Madness Maze.

  "It took me a long time to piece all that together," said the Wolfling. "But I've been in contact with the various conspiracies and undergrounds for centuries, via the computers Giles left me, and I've had a lot of time alone here, with nothing to do but think."

  "Giles never really cared about the people or the rebellion
," said Owen. "It was all just a plan to put him on the throne."

  "Him, and his Family," said Wulf.

  "But Giles always came first," said Owen. "An Empire-wide rebellion, built not upon honor or justice, but one man's guilt."

  "Does it really matter?" said Hazel. "Giles may have started the rebellion, but we finished it, for our own purposes. And in the end, the Empire we helped to make is nothing like the Empire Giles had in mind. Only one Deathstalker helped shape Humanity's future, and that's you, Owen."

  "Oh yes," said the Wolfling, his mouth stretching in a broad smile that showed all his teeth. "It's all down to you, Owen. And your story isn't over yet. There's still more you need to know. Let me tell you what the Recreated really are. They're not aliens and they're not boogeymen; the truth is really much more horrible than that. Everyone and everything that died during the creation of the Darkvoid is still alive. So many cried out as they died, all those centuries ago, that the baby heard them, even in its sleep. It dreamed they were still alive, and so they were. Without shape or form, they existed in the endless dark, crying out with rage and pain and shock and loss and horror. They soon went insane, and in that madness eventually learned to tap the power that was keeping them alive. They drew, slowly and cautiously, on the sleeping baby's power, tapping indirectly the power of the Madness Maze itself, and in time they learned how to make new bodies for themselves. But they were insane, and so were the shapes they took. They made themselves into the nightmarish evil aliens that Humanity had always feared meeting, and dedicated themselves to revenge, against the Humanity that sentenced them to death, and then left them alone and abandoned in the eternal darkness.

  "They started slowly, afraid to stray too far from the source of their existence. But eventually they reached out, and snatched Captain Fast from the bridge of his own starship. They experimented on him, learning what they could do, and finally made him over into Half A Man, One and Two. And then they sent the first one back, to spread fear and propaganda of the terrible evil aliens waiting Out There, and prepare Humanity for their eventual coming. And all the time, he was their unwitting spy in Humanity's camp. Alien species that might have been Humanity's friends and allies were enslaved or destroyed, as the result of a policy formulated by Half A Man. The Recreated were determined that when they finally did burst out of the Darkvoid, Humanity would find itself utterly alone.

  "Down the centuries, the Recreated gathered and concentrated their power, moving slowly away from their source, heading for the Rim. And now they're out. Humanity's dark, neglected offspring, home to roost at last."

  "Figures," said Hazel, after a long silence. "Humanity always was its own worst enemy."

  "They aren't necessarily all evil," said Silence slowly. "The Recreated. I remember voices, coming out of the Darkvoid, trying to warn us of the dangers of the approaching starship Champion. Perhaps… some of them remember who and what they used to be."

  The Wolfling shrugged, a disturbingly supple movement. "If so, they're in a minority. The Recreated want vengeance and the utter destruction of Humanity, and they won't settle for anything less. They are vast and they are powerful, and what little remains of the Empire's forces isn't nearly enough to stop them."

  "Are you saying it's hopeless?" said Carrion. "That there's nothing we can do?"

  "There's always hope," said the Wolfling, almost reluctantly. "One of you can still make a difference. The circle of your life has almost come to a close, Owen. Time for one Deathstalker to stop what another began, and save all Humanity."

  "Of course," said Owen. "It always comes down to me in the end, doesn't it? Damn it. All right, Wulf; what unpleasant and probably fatal thing do I have to do this time?"

  "I can't tell you," said the Wolfling. "Some things are still withheld from me. Probably so I won't interfere. You have to go back into the Madness Maze, Owen. All the way back in. You'll find all the answers you need at the heart of the Maze. But you'd better hurry. The Recreated know about you; they sense that somehow you might be able to stop them. Some of them are already here, hovering over the planet. Their fear holds them back, but it also goads them on. A Deathstalker made them what they are, but another might undo them."

  "How?" said Owen angrily. "Speak plainly, damn you!"

  "Don't get him angry," Hazel murmured. "He's a lot bigger than I remembered."

  The Wolfling laughed softly, a dark growling sound. "The Recreated draw their power from the baby in the Maze. If you could interrupt that link, they might just cease to exist. Of course, the only way to be sure of breaking that link would be for you to murder an innocent child."

  "There's got to be another way," said Owen immediately.

  "Maybe. But you don't have much time to find it, Owen. Soon the Recreated will overcome their fear, and then they'll come dropping down out of the dark, carve their way down through the frozen outer layers of this world, and find you. They'll make your death last for eons, stretch your suffering across Time till your dying screams are all that remains of Humanity. Make your decision, Owen. The Recreated will be here soon, and nothing in the physical realm can stop them now."

  "Go, Owen," said Hazel. "The Maze saved us once; maybe it'll save us again. We'll guard your back here."

  "Unfortunately, it's not that simple," said the Wolfling, and they all looked at him, startled by something new in his voice. "First, you have to get past me."

  He was crouching a little now, as though ready to spring, but his great furry head still towered above theirs. Long sharp claws extended from his fingers. The wide grin had become a snarl, the sharp teeth like a steel trap in his mouth. The frowning yellow eyes were full of hatred. Just standing there, the Wolfling had suddenly become extremely dangerous. Silence and Hazel let their hands drop to the guns at their hips. Carrion stood a little straighter, his hand tightening around the power lance he held before him. Owen stood very still.

  "Why?" he said finally. "We have always been allies, if never friends. And even if the Recreated don't destroy you along with the rest of us, you wouldn't want to live in the universe they'll make."

  "Giles," said Wulf, and his voice was a low, threatening growl. "He was my friend, my old friend, who only wanted to put things right again. And you killed him. I never gave a damn about your rebellion. Humanity destroyed my whole species. Giles was the only one I ever cared about, and he's gone now. So let Humanity die. As for my own life… I should have died long ago, with the last of my kind, with my mate and cubs, but the Maze kept me alive, against my will. I never asked or wanted to be its guardian. I've been forced to be part of a great ongoing scheme, whose details and end have always been withheld from me. This may be my only chance to rebel, to destroy that scheme, and have my revenge on the Maze, and on you. For everything you took from me."

  The Wolfling launched himself, moving impossibly quickly, his extended, curving claws reaching for Owen's throat. Owen boosted, and threw himself to one side. In a moment his sword was in his hand, and he turned and pirouetted on one foot, bringing his sword around in a swift double-handed arc. The blade whistled through the air as the Wolfling ducked under it. Silence and Hazel opened fire with their disrupters, and Carrion's power lance crackled with spiraling energies. The Wolfling avoided both energy blasts with fluid ease, moving faster than the human eye could follow, and he lashed out with one long arm, slapping the power lance out of Carrion's hands. In a moment he was concentrated on Owen again, and the Deathstalker had to move at the top of his boosted speed just to keep up with the Wolfling's attacks. His sword cut into the Wolfling's furry hide again and again, Wulf ignoring pain and injury in his determination to get to Owen, his slashing claws coming ever nearer, the great teeth flashing in a wide grin.

  Silence and Hazel drew their swords as Carrion ran to reclaim his power lance. Owen shouted for them to stay back. He'd already worked out that he couldn't hope to win this fight on a purely physical level. The Wolfling was immortal, a survivor of centuries, kept alive by the power of
the Maze. Owen had already stuck him with thrusts that would have killed a normal living being, and the Wolfling just shrugged them off and kept coming. Which meant… the answer had to be with the Maze. Owen scowled. He needed to think, but there just wasn't time. The Wolfling was pressing him too close. So; when in doubt, go for broke. Owen deliberately left himself open for a moment, and the Wolfling surged forward. Savage claws ripped into Owen's side and out again, spraying blood on the forest air, but Owen had already swung his blade in a long, double-handed arc with all his strength behind it. The keen edge of the blade sheared clean through the Wolfling's narrow neck, and the long lupine head went flying from the broad shoulders.

  Owen and the Wolfling both fell to their knees. Owen clutched tightly at his side, gasping with pain, blood pulsing thickly between his fingers. He thought he could feel broken ribs. The headless body of the Wolfling knelt beside him, blood spouting up from the severed neck, its arms reaching blindly out in search of the separated head. It lay some distance away. The eyes still moved, fixed on the hands as they edged closer. Hazel stepped quickly forward and kicked the head out of reach. The jaws snapped at her boot and the eyes rolled furiously.

  Owen closed his eyes, ignoring the pain in his side to concentrate. He reached out to the Madness Maze with his thoughts, and felt it acknowledge him, like a slumbering giant slowly waking at the sound of a familiar voice. Owen concentrated his mind on a single thought.

  For God's sake; let the poor bastard die.

  The headless body fell forward onto the green and red grass, and slowly stilled, the hands twitching, as though still searching for an enemy to crush. The severed head's jaws gaped wide in one last soundless cry of rage or pain or perhaps just relief, and then it too was still, its eyes mercifully empty. The blood finally stopped pulsing from the body's severed neck, and the Wolfling was finally dead.