Deathstalker

  It was cold in the corridor, and the air had an old, dusty smell. The only sounds were the quiet squeakings of the trolley wheels, and the occasional muttering of voices. Hazel tried to move against the straps holding her down, but they were too tight. She was helpless, and alone, and in the hands of her enemies.

  The trolley finally lurched to a halt in a wide stone chamber. Without moving her head, she tried to take in as much of her new surroundings as possible. The walls and the low ceiling of the chamber had been constructed from the same gray stone, unrelieved by any adornments save the living torch holders. And then she caught her breath sharply as she saw a severed human head standing on a dull pewter pedestal. It was still alive, and aware. The skin had a normal hue, but the top half of the head and skull had been removed, sawed cleanly away above the eyebrows, so that the upper brain tissues were exposed, pale and glistening in the torchlight. Delicate metal filaments protruded from the naked tissues, with sparks of light coming and going at their tips. The mouth trembled slightly, as though always on the edge of speaking, and the eyes were sharp and clear and suffering and horribly sane.

  "Don't mind him," said a dry, dusty voice behind her. "That's just my oracle. A repository of information and deduction. Far superior to your computers."

  Hazel let her head roll slowly to one side, pretending to be weaker than she was. A Blood Runner was standing at her side, a vicious white specter in gaudy robes.

  And yet there was something familiar about the face, or perhaps rather the scars on the face… Hazel suddenly remembered where she'd seen this Blood Runner before, and a cold hand gripped her heart like a fist.

  "Scour …"

  "That's right, Hazel d'Ark. I came for you once before, in the old Standing of the Deathstalker, but you eluded me."

  "You're dead! Owen killed you! I saw you die!"

  "Blood Runners don't stay dead," said Scour, his face and voice calm and unmoved. "We've moved beyond that. We've lived for centuries, and death has no power over us anymore. We're an old culture, Hazel; older than your Empire. It's been a long time since we saw anything new. Anything like you… dear Hazel. We're going to learn so much from you."

  Hazel glared at him. "I don't have a damned thing to say to you, Blood Runner. I don't care what kind of a deal my old Captain made with you people when I served on the Shard, I don't owe you anything!"

  Scour shrugged easily. His voice remained a bare whisper, untroubled by the naked hate in Hazel's voice and eyes. "Everyone talks eventually. Let me show you the previous occupant of this chamber. He was so sure of himself when he first came here; so delightfully full of defiance, just like you. Swore, he'd die before he broke. But we wouldn't allow him that option."

  Scour took hold of the end of the trolley with his large white hands. The fingers were long and slender, like a surgeon's or an artist's. The trolley spun sharply around, briefly disturbing Hazel's stomach, and when it stopped, Hazel was facing the other end of the chamber. Scour moved unhurriedly around to stand beside her, and then gently lifted her head so that she could see. And there, pinned to the gray stone wall by great brass staples in his hands and arms, hung what remained of a man. His face was untouched, dominated by wild staring eyes. But beneath that he'd been gutted from chin to groin, cut open in a perfectly straight line, the skin pulled back and pinned to the wall in wide pink flaps. His internal organs were gone. Instead, lengths of transparent tubing plunged into the great crimson cavity where his guts had been. Some of them twined between and around his exposed ribs like obscene ivy, feeding him slow-moving liquids, and draining off others. They pulsed slowly, and the man's whole body shook gently in time to that ghastly rhythm. His genitals were gone, the gap plugged with a simple metal plate. Blood had run down his dangling legs from the terrible wounds, long ago, and had never been cleaned off.

  "He was so very brave," said Scour. "But bravery isn't enough, here. All that matters now is how useful you can be to us. And this specimen's use is at an end."

  He let Hazel's head fall back onto the trolley with a painful thud, and strolled over to the hanging man. Hazel forced her head up again just in time to see Scour grab a handful of the transparent tubing and rip it out. The man's whole body convulsed, and a long shuddering wail issued from the man's throat. Fluids ran from the ends of the tubing, and pooled on the floor. The scream broke off abruptly as blood and something else gushed from the man's mouth, and then the life went out of his eyes, and his head fell forward. The arms and legs still twitched, but he was obviously dead. Scour let the tubing drop carelessly to the floor.

  "Is that supposed to impress me?" said Hazel, quietly pleased that her voice still sounded calm and steady.

  "No," said Scour, walking unhurriedly back to stand over her again. "It's supposed to scare you. Fear is your friend here. It will help you make the inevitable transition from living legend to laboratory specimen. Defiance means only pain. Stubbornness means only unnecessary suffering. You will break, eventually. Everyone does. Better to get it over with quickly, while most of your sanity remains. Ah, Hazel; the things we shall learn from you, as we become intimate with your flesh and blood and bone, your every depth of body and mind."

  "Tell you what," said Hazel, thinking Anything to buy time, time for my powers to return, "Let's make it an exchange. You tell me all about yourself, about the Blood Runners, and I'll tell you all about me. The things I can do, that you don't know about. A trade; and no one needs to get hurt."

  Scour looked down at her for a long moment. "It's been a very long time since I could speak of our origins with anyone who could hope to understand and appreciate them. After all, dear Hazel, you're no more human than we are, anymore. Listen, and learn, as I tell you the true and terrible history of the Blood Runners."

  A headless human body strode into the chamber, carrying a simple wooden chair before it. The skin between the shoulders was perfectly smooth, as though the well muscled body had never had a neck or a head, nor ever felt a need for them. It came to a halt beside the trolley, and set the chair down gently. Scour sat on it, arranging his robes comfortably. The headless body turned and left. It didn't seem to need a head to see where it was going.

  "Just a servant," said Scour casually. "Our will moves them, and nothing else. Think of them as meat machines. Our tech has taken a different turn; our wonders derive from the endless capacities of the human body and mind, not the cold metals and crystals of your limited tech. Now; where shall I begin? With the Summerstone, perhaps? No; further back than that. You need to appreciate how old we are. How unspeakably ancient.

  "Before the Empire was, we were. Before Humanity spread itself across the many worlds, we were already old. Separate, even then, though only human, following our own hidden ways. When Humanity went to the stars, we found a world for ourselves. Centuries passed, as we remade ourselves in our desired image. Not like the Hadenmen, with their limiting reliance on tech, but through genetic engineering and body sculpting. Where Humanity dared not go, we went gladly, ignoring all restraints. We dreamed the impossible, and made it real in flesh and blood and bone.

  "We became long-lived, vastly improved hermaphrodites. Man and woman, in one flesh. All the pleasures, aptitudes, and resources of both sexes, in one powerful body. We lost the ability to make children, but we wanted to live forever in our own flesh, not our offspring's. I was alive then, as all who lived then are alive now. Not in this body, admittedly. Our identities live on in the mindpool; passing from one body to another down the long centuries. As one body wears out, I leave it to die, transfer my consciousness into the mindpool, and then download myself back into the new body I had prepared previously. That's why we wear the ritual scars on our faces; they identify the inhabitant of the body. Flesh is finite, but we go on forever."

  "What… what happens to the minds and souls of the new bodies you create?" said Hazel, to prove she was paying attention.

  Scour shrugged. "We drive them out. Newborn souls are no match for minds that have
endured for centuries."

  "That's how you survived Owen's attack," said Hazel. "You just moved on into another body."

  "Of course. We are always prepared. The extent of his power surprised us, so we decided to wait and watch till you had temporarily exhausted your powers, and then pressed our claim to you again. You belong to us, Hazel d'Ark, and we will have our pound of flesh, and more besides. Don't wait for Owen to come and rescue you. No one can come to where we are without our permission. The Obeah Systems are more a state of mind than a state of matter."

  "Power source," said Hazel. "You must have some kind of power source. To fuel your… science, maintain the mindpool. The Summerstone?"

  "Very good, Hazel. You're almost fully awake now. Yes, the Summerstone. It helped make us what we are today. It maintains our existence, defends us from our enemies, ensures our survival. All our power, to create and destroy, has its heart there. Would you like to see it?"

  He gestured with one hand, and a great slab of stone was suddenly standing at the foot of the trolley. Hazel lifted her head to see it better. A great conical shape of solid stone, gray and pitted, it was roughly eight feet in diameter, and its tip touched the ceiling of the chamber. It looked like it weighed tons, and Hazel was vaguely surprised the floor didn't crack under its weight. It looked… solid, dense; realer than real. And strangely, hauntingly, familiar.

  "Do you recognize it?" said Scour, studying her face closely.

  "No. Where did you find it?"

  "The same place you did; on a planet once known as Haden, and before that, the Wolfling World. What you're looking at was once part of the Madness Maze. We stole it, and brought it here."

  He gestured, the stone disappeared. Hazel let her head drop back onto the trolley, her thoughts churning. "That piece of rock was once part of the Madness Maze? But…"

  "Yes, yes, I know. You saw a high-tech structure. But the Maze's appearance is largely dictated by the minds of those who discover it. You expected to see an alien artifact, so that's what you saw. We think in older terms, so we saw a ring of standing stones. A Henge. It took us a long time to understand what it was, and what it could do, and in the end we were driven from that world before we could pierce its heart, as you did. But we took one stone with us, and it has sustained us ever since. Perhaps now you begin to understand why we are so eager to learn the secrets of your flesh and of your mind, to understand what marvelous changes the Maze has wrought in you. The Maze is gone. Destroyed. You are all that remains of its glory and its mystery. We will know your secrets. We deserve them. You are what we were meant to be!"

  Hazel considered the possibilities of Blood Runners with Maze powers, and her blood ran cold. She surged up against the leather straps holding her down, channeling all her will into calling up her boost, and sudden new strength flooded through her. Fear and desperation can do much to clear even the most clouded of minds. The leather straps held, but the buckles gave way, the metal ripping through the leather as Hazel's more than human strength blazed up in her. She sat up quickly, throwing aside the loosened straps, and jumped down from the trolley, careful to put it between her and Scour. Her legs were only unsteady for a moment. Her mind was crystal clear, and already working furiously on how to get past Scour to the only exit from the chamber. Her hands dropped automatically to her sides, but her guns and her sword were gone, of course. It didn't matter. She was boosting, and strong enough and mad enough to handle one scrawny Blood Runner. She pushed the trolley aside.

  Scour hadn't moved an inch, his face entirely unmoved. "Get back on the trolley, Hazel. There's nowhere you can go. Your life is over; your destiny ends here, with us."

  "Cram it," said Hazel. "I'll see every one of you dead before I let you lay one finger on me. Even if I have to dismantle you one at a time with my bare hands. Now, you can either show me the way out of this hellhole, or I'll start with you."

  "There is no way out. This is all there is. And you're not going anywhere."

  Scour raised a pale hand, and a shimmering force field sprang up between him and Hazel. It moved slowly toward her, spitting and crackling, and she backed uneasily away. A similar energy field had brought her all the way here from Lachrymae Christi. She tried to make a dart for the open doorway, but another force field appeared out of nowhere to block her way. It advanced on her too, and Hazel backed away again, looking quickly about her. In her boosted state she was potentially very fast on her feet, but there just wasn't enough room to build up any speed. The two crackling energy fields hemmed her in, and herded her back to the trolley. Hazel dropped out of boost. No point in burning up what little strength she had left. Scour smiled at her.

  "This is our world, Hazel, our place, and we are very powerful here. Now, be a good little lab specimen, and lie back down on the trolley, and we can make a start on your long journey into pain and self-knowledge."

  He held up one pale hand, and there was something shiny in it. Shiny and sharp. A scalpel.

  "We're going to have such fun together, Hazel."

  "That's enough, Scour," said a new rough voice from the doorway. "This was not agreed. She belongs to all of us."

  Hazel looked quickly around, hoping against hope for a last-minute rescue, or at least a breathing space. A second Blood Runner was standing in the open doorway, his left hand held up in protest or warning. Two of the headless bodies stood behind him, muscular arms crossed over their immense chests. Scour scowled at the newcomer.

  "Still afraid to travel anywhere without your bodyguards, Lament. It was decided that Hazel d'Ark should be placed into my hands, that I should have first access to the mysteries of her flesh. I have the most experience in these matters."

  "That's a matter of opinion," said Lament. "And not all of us agreed with that decision. You are too secretive, Scour. You keep too many things to yourself, these days. The secrets contained in Hazel d'Ark's mind and body are too precious, too important to us all, to be trusted only to you. I speak for many. Do not defy us."

  "I have allies too, Lament." The dry, rough voice was cracking with anger, but still little more than a whisper. "There are many who owe me favors. Many who would come when I called."

  "But are you ready to risk open war in the corridors, Scour? Many of us are. Hazel d'Ark could be the key that finally opens our long delayed potential. With what we learn from her, we could become gods of the whole Empire, rather than just this place."

  "Don't I get a say in this?" said Hazel. "If I was just offered a little civilized consideration, I might well cooperate with what you want."

  "I doubt that," said Lament, looking directly at her for the first time, his eyes as cold as Scour's. "Not with what we intend to do to you."

  "What do you want, Lament?" said Scour.

  "There is a gathering at the Summerstone. All the Blood Runners. We want Hazel d'Ark brought to the Summerstone, to see what effect it has on her, and her on it."

  "That's dangerous," said Scour immediately. "Too many unknowns. Too much out of our control. What if she regains her full powers?"

  "What if she does? She is one, and we are many, and this is our place of power. Nothing happens here without our consent. You know that."

  "True. Very well. She goes to the Summerstone." Scour turned his bloodred eyes on Hazel, and she had to fight down an instinctive need to fall back a pace. "If nothing else, it should be interesting to see what you make of the Summerstone. And what it makes of you."

  In a stone hall that seemed to stretch away on all sides forever, the Blood Runners were dancing. Their long robes flapped and swayed as they stamped and strutted and pirouetted around the great standing stone. There were maybe a hundred of them, all told, weaving in to and away from one another without ever once connecting or colliding. They moved quickly, confidently, through endless measures of a complicated pattern Hazel couldn't even comprehend, let alone follow; driven by an energy that pushed them to their limits.

  Hazel stood to one side, her arms held firmly by two of S
cour's headless bodies. She didn't even bother to try to fight them. Scour and Lament had joined the dance the moment they arrived, almost as though pulled in against their will, and were now lost to her; just two more willowy albinos stamping their pale feet on the gray stone floor. There was no music, only the rhythm of hammering feet on the floor, and the Blood Runners' fast, frantic breathing. Their eyes were wide and staring, lost in the grip of some inner song, some violent siren call to which only they were privy. Hazel turned her attention to the great standing stone, expecting it to have the impact it had manifested in Scour's image, but to her disappointment it was just a stone. It meant nothing to her.

  Human arms thrust up out of the stone floor, holding torches to light the hall around the stone. The walls were too far away to be seen. If there were walls. It was like standing on an open plane. The ceiling high above was lost in gloom. More of the severed heads with their brains exposed stood on pedestals in the middle distance, like so many computer terminals standing ready for use. Hazel wondered if that was to be her eventual fate, when the Blood Runners had got all they wanted from her, and she shuddered despite herself. Hundreds of the headless bodies formed a perimeter circle, containing the stone and the dance at a respectful distance. They were utterly motionless, unmoved for the moment by the will of their owners.

  From listening to Scour and Lament, and occasionally egging them into arguing with each other, Hazel had managed to build up some notion of how they lived here. They all derived their powers from the Summerstone, making them all theoretically equal, so they pursued power and influence by forming ever-changing partnerships and cabals, and creating ever increasing private armies of the headless men to enforce their will on the physical plane. Intrigue was rife, occasionally breaking out into open clashes between opposed armies in the stone corridors. The already precarious status quo was apparently on the edge of breaking down completely with Hazel's arrival, and the possibility of accessing the full power of the Madness Maze.