Deathstalker Destiny

  “This time, we decided not to just give you the benefits we brought. Instead, we created the Maze, and left it for you to search out and investigate for yourselves. Hopefully that would make you value it more. And eventually, after many false starts, you and your companions came to the Maze and passed all the way through, and emerged transformed. The first butterflies from a race of caterpillars. It had taken a while, but at last the Maze had found the right sort of people; intense, focused, determined people.”

  “But ... what did the Maze do to us, really?” said Owen. “I thought at first we were some kind of super-esper, but we’re not. What are we, now?”

  “You are what Humanity would have become, in its far and distant future. The Maze just speeded evolution up a bit. A shortcut. You have the power to change reality itself through force of will.” Cathy smiled at his expression. “Didn’t any of you ever realize? It expressed itself differently in each of you, according to your individual needs and propensities, but really any of you could have done anything the others did. If you just had faith. Only your own limited thinking held you back. Of course; you were all supposed to stay and work together. The whole would have been far greater than the sum of its parts. But you insisted on going your own, separate ways. Humans... That’s why so many people died or went insane trying to pass through the Maze. It could only help and change those flexible enough to change their thinking. Those too rigid in their thoughts, too unworthy or too scared to change, broke rather than be transformed. Their madness and death came from inside themselves, not from the Maze.”

  “Let’s talk about the baby,” said Owen. “What’s his part in all this?”

  “When Giles died, the baby somehow knew it,” said Cathy. “He began to wake, drifting slowly up from the protecting depths of sleep. The Recreated sensed this, and became desperate. If the baby were to wake, then the source of their power, their very existence, was under threat.”

  “Is that what triggered the Recreated’s great assault on Humanity?” said Owen. “By killing Giles, am I responsible for their attack?”

  “No. They started out of the Darkvoid after Captain Silence destroyed the Maze. In fact, it had only jumped forward through Time, but the Recreated didn’t know that. All they knew was that the source of their power was suddenly gone. They were able to survive, until the Maze returned, but the experience panicked them. You now know all you need to know. It’s time we began the last part of your journey. Of your destiny.”

  Cathy rose to her feet, and Owen did so too. The chairs disappeared silently. Cathy turned her gaze on the sleeping baby, and after a moment Owen did so too.

  “He is your kin, your Family,” said Cathy softly. “You are both Deathstalkers. Talk to him, Owen. He will hear you.”

  “I don’t even know his name,” Owen protested. “And anyway, he’s still asleep.”

  “Reach out to him,” said Cathy. “He’ll hear you.”

  Owen turned to look at the sleeping baby, and found his eyes were already open and looking at him. They were dark eyes, like his, but clear and calm and full of wonder. Owen reached out with his mind, and the baby’s thoughts came to meet him. They blazed like fireworks, like comets in the night, blindingly bright and gaudily colored, and at first all Owen could understand was the baby’s feelings; warm and loving and surprisingly trusting. Owen opened himself to the baby, who learned words and concepts from him in a moment. The baby’s mind was very large, though strangely unfocused in places, and Owen felt like a single fish in a sentient ocean. He worried briefly that he might drown there, but the baby quickly broadcast reassurance. They relaxed together, concentrating on their link. The baby had learned much from the Maze, but people were still new to him. Two Maze-altered Deathstalkers communed in an alien place, and found joy in each other. They talked, sometimes in words and sometimes not, like father and child, and more and less than that.

  I’m sorry about what I did, said the baby, mentally. I want to put everything right again, and I will, but I need time to consider how. I don’t want to make any more mistakes. You must buy me the time I need.

  Whatever you need, said Owen. But what can I do?

  Ask Cathy. She knows. Good-bye, Owen. I’m glad I got to meet you at last.

  Owen smiled down at the baby, who removed the tiny thumb from his mouth so he could smile back. And then the baby closed his dark, knowing eyes and went back to sleep, considering how to change the universe again. Owen looked at the alien with Cathy’s face.

  “Well; that was... different. I like him. So; what is it I have to do? What can one man do, against something like the Recreated?”

  Cathy looked at him steadily. “This is the final part of your destiny, Owen. You have to distract the Recreated; hold their attention and keep them occupied, while the baby prepares for what he will do next. All the Recreated, not just the few facing Hazel and the others above this world. If the Recreated understand the baby is working against them, they might try to drive hm back into the depths of sleep again. They might even risk destroying him, and if the baby dies, all hope for Humanity’s survival dies with him. It’s all down to you, Owen.”

  “Whatever it is, it must be really bad, or you wouldn’t keep putting it off. Tell me. I can take it.” Owen glared at Cathy, who stared sadly back at him. Owen sighed. “I’m really not going to like this, am I?”

  On the bridge of the Sunstrider, Hazel was living her dream. The ship’s new weapons fired over and over again, but the numbers of the Recreated seemed endless. Her targets were so large she couldn’t miss, but it was hard to do any real damage to anything so vast. She kept the Sunstrider weaving and dodging, eluding crippling energy blasts and mile-long tentacles with barbs the size of her ship, but the Recreated were everywhere now and she couldn’t dodge them all. Her shields were going down, and the Sunstrider was taking more and more damage, some of it really bad.

  Alarm sirens wailed continuously until she turned them off. They weren’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. One side of the control panels had exploded, filling the bridge with leaping flames and black billowing smoke. Hazel had put out the main fires, but flames still flickered here and there, casting dark leaping shadows across the bridge. The extractor fans were working overtime, trying to clear the smoke from the air. Hazel barely noticed. All her attention was plugged into the weapon controls and navigation systems now, as she fought her way doggedly through the endless ranks of the Recreated. She targeted and fired her guns over and over, delighting in her small victories, but she was deathly tired now, and she could feel the Sunstrider slowly dying around her. Even a ship rebuilt by the Maze could only take so much punishment.

  Hazel fought on. The odds against her were impossible to beat, just as she’d dreamed, but she wasn’t going to let a little thing like that stop her. She was Hazel d‘Ark, and today she earned her legend.

  The Dauntless was there too, blasting a path through the Recreated, shields flaring brilliantly as they tried to absorb or deflect the attacking energies. Many of the shields had already gone down, and the outer hull was open to space in half a dozen places. Interior seals preserved the ship’s atmosphere, but every section lost weakened the ship still further. Captain Silence sat calmly in his command chair, issuing a steady stream of orders even as damage reports and crew losses came in from all over his ship. Since coming out of the Maze, his mind had expanded to fill his ship from stem to stern, knowing it as intimately as he knew his own body. He was the Dauntless now, and it was him.

  He studied the massing Recreated through his ship’s sensors, and pushed aside despair with almost casual disdain. He never once thought of retreating. He was standing between Humanity and its Enemy, and that was all he’d ever really wanted. Another workstation suddenly went up in flames, and its occupant screamed as the flames consumed him. He was dead by the time damage control had put out the fire, but Silence had no time to mourn. That would be for later, if there was a later. He maintained his calm, steady stream o
f orders, holding his crew together by strength of will and force of personality. Despite the strain, and the impossible odds, none of them had broken, and Silence was very proud of them. He nursed the remaining power in the ship’s engines, switching it from weapons to shields and back again, as needed, buying time for the Deathstalker, a man he’d once considered an enemy and a traitor, but who might now be Humanity’s last and only hope.

  Out in open space, Carrion flew with his people, the Ashrai, darting back and forth in the darkness like a living star, burning so very brightly now. He struck at the monsters around him with his power lance, blasting apart unnatural flesh and bone with cold, intense fury. He was fast and deadly, and they couldn’t touch him. Space couldn’t harm him; he swam in it like a shark in a sunless sea. Where he looked, awful shapes exploded, and where he gestured, the Recreated were torn apart. But he was so small, and they were so large.

  Even the whole race of the Ashrai reborn was dwarfed by the Recreated.

  Carrion fought on, singing the song of the Ashrai, fighting beside them as he had once before, his voice joining with those of his people.

  “You have to go back, Owen,” said the alien, and it didn’t sound like Cathy anymore. “Back through the Pale Horizon, back through Space and Time. You can do this. You have the power within you. Your whole life has been leading up to this, to this moment, this decision; toward making you into a hero capable of performing this last deed for Humanity. You must run, and let the Recreated chase you. Hold their attention. Hold them close. Don’t let them fall back, or consider giving up the chase. Keep them always on your tail, staying just ahead of them. Taunt them. Make them hate you. As you and they go further back in Time, the distance and the pursuit will drain the Recreated’s energy. That should give you the edge you need.

  “I won’t lie to you. If they catch you, if you let them get too close, you’ll die horribly. You don’t have to do this. I can’t make you. But it’s the only way left to ensure Humanity’s survival, and put everything right again.”

  “That was all Giles ever wanted,” said Owen. “But he chose the wrong way. So this is your great plan. I knew I wouldn’t like it.”

  “But you’ll do it.”

  “Of course I’ll do it,” said Owen. “I always do, don’t I? I’ve always known my duty. Known what it means, to be a Deathstalker. Talk to me; whatever you are. How are we going to convince all the Recreated that they should give up their attack on the brink of victory, in order to chase me back through Time?”

  “The Maze and I will work together to make the Recreated think that you are the baby, trying to escape them by traveling back into the past. They’ll pursue you rather than risk losing their power source, and perhaps their very existence.”

  Owen considered this. “All right; that might just work. But how the hell do I Time travel? I’ve never had that ability before...”

  “Of course you have. You traveled through Time once before, right here, the first time you came through the Maze. Remember, Owen...”

  Owen closed his eyes, concentrating on his newly restored memories of his first trip through the Madness Maze. The memory came to him again, clear and sharp as yesterday. He remembered journeying back through Time, watching his own life unravel before him, all the moments and decisions that had made him what he was. It was so simple a trick, once he saw how. Time was just another direction. But before he committed himself to the last great task of his destiny, Owen decided he was entitled to one small thing for himself. And so he concentrated, reached back through Time, and brought a man forward into the future, into the hidden heart of the Madness Maze. Owen slowly opened his eyes, and there standing before him was his father. Arthur Deathstalker.

  Arthur was a young man, about the same age as Owen, dressed in formal Court attire. A sword at his side and a gun on his hip, and the same dark hair and darker eyes. They looked more like brothers than father and son. Owen looked at his father, dead and gone all those yeas ago, and his throat closed up. He couldn’t say anything. Arthur looked around him, more baffled than alarmed, and then turned back to Owen, and gave him a surprisingly charming smile.

  “I don’t think I know you, sir, though your face... is familiar. Which is more than I can say for this unusual place. Perhaps you could tell me where this is, and who you are, and why I am here.”

  “This ... is the future,” said Owen. “Your future. I brought you here, to talk with you. I’m your son, Owen.”

  Arthur raised an elegant eyebrow. “My son Owen is currently four years old, and more trouble than anyone should be cursed with. He’s already run through three nannies. Have you any evidence of this extraordinary claim?”

  Owen held up his right hand, and the Family ring of chunky black gold showed clearly on his finger. Arthur caught his breath for a moment, and then raised his right hand, to show an identical ring. They slowly lowered their hands. Arthur took a deep breath, and let it go.

  “Damn. That’s the Deathstalker ring, all right. Only ever was one. So; Time travel. Damn. That is impressive. And you’re my son, Owen, all grown up. You look like you turned out fine. You look a lot like your grandfa ther, actually. Why am I here, Owen? I take it there is some reason.”

  “You’re taking this very calmly,” said Owen. “Certainly more than I am.”

  Arthur shrugged easily. “When you intrigue for a living in the Royal Court, there isn’t much that can scare or throw you anymore.” He fixed Owen with a sharp look. “Am I dead in your time, Owen? Is that what this is all about?”

  “Yes,” said Owen flatly. “Lionstone had you murdered. She sent Kit SummerIsle after you, and he cut you down in the street. Nobody came to help.”

  “Well,” said Arthur, after a moment. “At least she sent someone worthy after me. A SummerIsle no less. No doubt he went on to greater things. Will I remember any of this, when I go back?”

  “I don’t know,” said Owen. “I’m ... new to all this Time travel business.”

  “Ah hell. I never expected to reach an old age. Deathstalkers don‘t, mostly. The price we pay for being movers and shakers, instead of just one of the crowd. The way of the warrior is never easy.”

  “Yes,” said Owen, new anger flooding into his words. “I became the warrior you always wanted me to be. I led the rebellion that overthrew Lionstone. I don’t have a wife, or a family, or anything else to call my own, but I still have your poisoned gift, Father. I became a bloody warrior!”

  “You sound upset,” said Arthur.

  “Are you surprised? When I’m a little older, you’ll hire a series of personal trainers to beat the shit out of me, over and over again, to try and bring out the boost in me, so I could be the great warrior you wanted. Well, I never wanted to be a warrior. Never! All I ever wanted was to be a scholar, a minor historian, doing quiet academic work in some ivory tower, far away from all the movers and shakers and all the misery they bring. But you and the damned Deathstalker legacy made me into a warrior anyway, and took away all the happiness I ever knew.”

  For the first time, Arthur looked concerned. He took a step forward, and reached out as though to take Owen in his arms. And then he saw the look in his son’s eyes, and slowly lowered his arms without touching him.

  “If I did do that, Owen, and you must remember I haven’t even considered it yet, then I probably ordered it done for the same reason my father had it done to me; because you needed the boost for your own protection. Just by being born a Deathstalker, you inherited many enemies. They would have had you killed in a moment, if they sensed weakness in you. I knew I might die with my work unfinished; you had to be able to survive, to carry on. And here you are now, a man grown into a warrior. Can you honestly say you’d be here, if you hadn’t had the boost?”

  “What about the deals you made?” said Owen. “With the Hadenmen and the Blood Runners, promising them their tithes of Humanity, in return for their support?”

  “The rebellion needed them,” said Arthur calmly. “I had to pro
mise what it took to close the deal. I always hoped that when the original Deathstalker finally appeared, he’d find some way to break the deals. Certainly I never intended we should actually pay the tithes, even if it meant another war. I’m a politician, Owen, not a monster.”

  “No, I never really thought you were a monster. You were my father.”

  “Then why did you bring me here, Owen?”

  “Because ... because I never got to say good-bye.” Owen’s eyes blurred with hot tears. “I missed you, Dad. I never thought I would, but I did. And I wanted you to know... I won the rebellion for you. I wanted you to be proud of me.”

  “I was always proud of you, Owen. You’re my son. And I’m glad I got the chance to see what a fine man you grew into.”

  This time, they hugged each other tightly. Two Deathstalkers, finding peace together at last. Eventually they broke apart.

  “Why didn’t you bring your mother here too?” said Arthur. “She’d have liked to see you too, I’m sure ...” And then he saw the look in Owen’s eyes. “Oh God. She dies young.”

  “I barely remember her,” said Owen. “It was an illness. Very sudden. You never talked much about her, to me.”

  “Damn. Damn.” Arthur looked away for a moment. “Perhaps it’s best I don’t remember any of this after all. I think it’s time you sent me home, Owen. Back to my own Time.” He looked back at Owen. “But I’m glad we had this chance to talk. I missed my father terribly after he was gone, killed in that stupid duel. I never got to say good-bye either. But I’m sure he would have been proud of you as I am. Good-bye, Owen. My son.”