"Of course," said William. "Looked at logically, it's the obvious next career move for her. She's reached the pinnacle of her profession, played all the biggest roles on all the biggest stages. Made more money than she knows what to do with, and she couldn't be any more famous if she tried. She is the biggest sensation in the Empire today. But where else can she go? If she continues as she is, she'll just end up repeating herself, or worse still, squandering her talents on roles unworthy of her. When you've reached the top of your profession, the only place left to go is down. The only way for her to become even more fabulous is to move out of art and into politics. There's nothing like the adulation of the masses to give you a taste for power over them. She could become a Member of Parliament, of course, but I think she'd see that as a step down. But to be Queen; to sit in State over the greatest Empire Humanity has ever known…"
Douglas looked sardonically at his father. "Are you going to give her the bad news, or is that my job, after we're married? Power my arse. She'll scream the place down, once she learns the truth. And God alone knows what kind of scream an opera singer can produce when she really puts her mind to it."
"The role of King and Queen are something the two of you will have to work out with Parliament," said William. "I personally plan to be thoroughly retired, and deep in hiding, when the explosions begin. Now do smarten yourself up, Douglas. Make an effort. Jesamine Flowers will be here very soon, and you do want to make a good first impression, don't you?"
Out over the city, flying high above the Parade of the Endless on their own personalized gravity sleds, Lewis Deathstalker and Finn Durandal raced soundlessly over brightly shining towers linked by delicate bridges, massive globes and pyramids shimmering with lights, minarets, and monoliths, all currently blessed with an unmarked layer of snow. The planets weather satellites had been programmed to provide the city with traditional Christmas weather, in honor of the great Ceremony. It all looked pretty enough, the clear white snow under the late afternoon sun, but winter weather was no fun at all when you had to fly through it at speed. Snow and ice produce bracing, if not downright bitter, winds, and the freezing air cut at the Paragons like knives as they shot through it on their way to the Arenas. Lewis and Finn crouched down behind the force shields that protected the front of their sleds, huddled inside their cloaks, and hunched their shoulders against the growing cold that gnawed at their bones. They could have slowed down, made it easier on themselves, but this was an emergency. People were in trouble. And, although neither Finn nor Lewis would ever have admitted it, even to themselves, neither of them would have given in first.
The Arena was set square in the middle of the city, just as it had always been, a huge stone colosseum surrounding blood-soaked sands. The structure had been expanded several times over the last two centuries, but there was still a long waiting list for even the poorest seats, and the right to certain prime locations were jealously guarded and handed down only within the family. Everyone watched the holo broadcasts, of course, but everyone knew it wasn't the same as being there in person. These days, it was strictly volunteers only; and every would-be gladiator had to undergo a strict psychological profile before he or she was allowed out onto the bloody sands. And the current high levels of medical care meant that very few people actually died and stayed dead in the Arenas. But it was still all about courage and honor and skill, and putting them all on the line for the pleasure of the crowds. The Arenas had never been more popular. The Board of Directors had put on a special bill for Christmas and the Coronation, involving all the main champions, several tag teams, and a whole load of vicious and dangerous nonsentient aliens imported from all across the Empire. The crowd was the biggest ever, standing in the aisles shoulder to shoulder. The greatest show on Logres. And then the ELFs came.
The ELFs. In the time of the blessed Owen Deathstalker, the espers discovered that they had been secretly manipulated by the needs and desires of their own subconscious gestalt mind; the Mater Mundi. Diana Vertue exposed this, and all the espers in the Empire joined together in a single great conscious gestalt, and took control of their own destiny for the first time. They called this mass-mind the oversoul. Millions of minds, working together, achieving miracles, never to be alone again.
But some esper minds were too disturbed, or damaged, to remain a part of the gestalt. Their madness threatened the whole, and so they had to be expelled from the oversoul. Other minds removed themselves from the gestalt, fearing the loss of their individuality, afraid of domination by a conscious Mater Mundi. And some had secrets and shames and desires they would not share with anyone, turned their faces away, and hid in the shadows.
These were the new ELFs; the Esper Liberation Force. Dedicated to liberating themselves from the tyranny of the oversoul. Banding together, seeing all others as enemies, the ELFs declared themselves clearly superior to the ungifted members of the human race and therefore destined to first rule and then replace baseline Humanity. They said the oversoul was mad and had to be destroyed. And since everyone was the enemy; any ELF attack, no matter how vicious, was really nothing more than self-defense. No one knew exactly how many ELFs there were. They struck from the shadows without warning, hurting the world before it could hurt them, exulting in the punishing of those who would hold them back from their rightful destiny.
That's what everybody knows. But there were rumors… dark, ugly rumors.
Some said the ELFs were led by the last of the super-espers: mental freaks and monsters created on the secret order of the Mater Mundi. Mad minds, terrible creatures artificially evolved far beyond, or behind, Humanity. So secret that only their names or designations were known, grim and sinister titles from a terrible past. The Shatter Freak. Blue Hellfire. Screaming Silence. The Gray Train. The Spider Harps.
No one knew for sure. Or if they did; they were too scared to talk.
Lewis steered his gravity sled in beside Finn's as they approached the towering outer wall of the Arena, the grim gray stone rising up before them. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the rising wind. "How bad is it; do you know?"
"Bad," Finn said flatly. "Maybe a dozen ELFs. More than have been seen in one place for over thirty years."
"Enough to take on the whole Arena crowd?"
"More than enough. They're stronger when they work together, you know that. First reports talked of hundreds dead. By now, it could be thousands."
"Then why hasn't the oversoul sent help?" said Lewis angrily. "The Psycho Sluts; they've got a good track record against the ELFs."
"Them? They're more trouble than they're worth." Finn's voice was entirely calm. They might have been discussing where to go for dinner. "I don't want those show-offs anywhere near me. Crazy as their progenitor, and dangerous with it."
"We need backup on this, Finn…"
"We won't be getting any help from the espers, Lewis. I already checked. They've got their hands full with an ELF attack on New Hope. The greatest concentration of espers on Logres is currently under attack by a suicide mind, broadcasting cannibalism memes all over the city. It's all the oversoul can do to keep a lid on its own people, and stop them from eating each other. Or themselves. They said they'll turn up when they can, so don't expect them any time soon."
"What about the other Paragons in town for the Ceremony?"
"Too far away. By the time they get here, it'll all be over, one way or the other. And all the local peacekeepers have been told to stand down and hide behind their esp-blockers. No point in giving the ELFs more minds to mess with. No, Lewis; it's down to us. Turn on your esp-blocker. We're going in."
Lewis's hand went immediately to the flat box at his waist. Cloned esper brain tissues, activated by an electric current. Not alive, not in any way conscious, but once activated capable of broadcasting a telepathic signal that blocked all esper powers in its vicinity. For a time, anyway. Finn glanced at Lewis, grinned briefly, and then his sled topped the Colosseum's outer wall and plunged down into the Arena; and Lewis w
as right there with him.
They could hear the maddened screaming and howling long before they were close enough to see the cause. Finn and Lewis descended swiftly through the sounds of Hell, into the heart of horror. The crowd were doing awful things to each other. Hundreds of thousands of people, raping and torturing and murdering each other, screaming and sobbing in anguish as they did it, their bodies moved by thoughts not their own. The ELFs had possessed the crowd; every man, woman, and child there dominated by an outside force beyond any human resistance. Appalling thoughts and needs and desires thundered inside their heads, and their bodies leaped to obey. Every foul thought and sick impulse ran wild in the blood-soaked terraces, while the hidden ELFs laughed and laughed, savoring the forbidden pleasures by proxy, and feeding on the released psychic energies.
There were old names for creatures like this that preyed on Humanity. Very old names. Demons. Vampires. Eaters of souls. But no name was more cursed in the Golden Age of Empire than that of the ELFs.
And the true horror of it; the possessed knew what they were being made to do. Helpless inside their own heads, they could only cry out at what their bodies were doing. Even those who survived this atrocity would spend the rest of their lives remembering it. Mental torture was just another pleasure, another source of energy, for the ELFs.
Lewis and Finn came roaring in on their gravity sleds, faster than the human eye could follow, howling their war cries. Finn's call to battle was his own ancient family name; Durandal! Lewis inherited his from the blessed Owen: Shandrakor! Shandrakor! The proud names stood out against the howling, and the ELFs looked up and saw their enemy coming; and a concerted mental roar of hate came boiling up to meet the descending Paragons.
The moment they revealed themselves, their minds blazed out like balefires on the instruments on Lewis's sled, marking their positions in the crowd. Lewis's heart sank. There were twenty ELFs present. Even with an esp-blocker to protect him against direct mental attacks, Lewis was in trouble and he knew it. If the ELFs even thought they were losing, they'd make every man, woman, and child in the crowd kill themselves. Hundreds of thousands of innocents, dead in a moment. Twenty ELF minds working together could do that. One last spiteful gesture.
Lewis carried an energy weapon on one hip and a sword on the other, and a force shield on his arm. And that was all. Usually, it was enough. Disrupters took a mere thirty seconds to recharge between shots these days. Though of course the sword was still the preferred, more honorable weapon. Neither of them much use here and now. The gravity sled had a great many built-in protections, but no offensive weaponry at all. Twenty ELFs… Think, dammit, think!
Lewis skimmed his sled low over the heads of the heaving crowd. Close enough to count the bodies, see the blood and the torn flesh, and the possessed faces transfixed with outside pleasures. What the hell were twenty of the bastards doing in one place, out in the open? Four or five was a more usual grouping, and even then they usually preferred to hide somewhere secure while they worked their evil; close enough to affect their victims without having to expose themselves… But the closer the connection, the more minds the ELFs could control, and the greater the pleasure and energies to be gained.
And, just maybe, they wanted to see it all for themselves…
Twenty ELFs. Hundreds of thousands of victims. This wasn't just a feeding frenzy, Lewis realized slowly. This was a statement. A warning, a threat, an insult to the King to be. Leave us alone. You don't rule us. No one does, not even our own kind. Leave us alone, or we'll do terrible, awful things. We'll make your people butcher and slaughter each other, and we'll eat it up with spoons. Do what we wilt shall be the whole of the law.
We're ELFs. You're just human. We'll do whatever we want, and you can't stop us.
Wrong, Lewis thought coldly.
Even as Lewis grappled with what to do, the enemy revealed themselves. In their arrogance, in their hatred and contempt for mere Humanity, the ELFs rose up out of the possessed crowd to show themselves, and taunt their enemy. Twenty ordinary-looking men and women flew up into the air, floating high above the writhing mass below them, and called out mockingly to the two Paragons, defying them. Their eyes glowed golden, bright as suns, and blasphemous self-generated halos circled every malevolent head. Their presence beat upon the air like giant wings, and then lashed out against the Paragon's esp-blockers, trying to smash aside their defenses through sheer brute power.
Lewis cried out despite himself, as something vile trailed fleetingly across the edges of his mind. As though a monster had hammered its fist on the door to his soul, demanding to be let in. Part of him wanted so badly to just run away and hide, but he was a Paragon, and a Deathstalker, and there were some things he just didn't do. He gunned the engine of his gravity sled and aimed it at the nearest ELF, shooting forward like an arrow from a bow. His eyes were very cold and very steady, and full of death. The rogue esper actually hung there for a moment in midair, unable to believe a mere human had dared to defy him, and then he dropped quickly back into the surging mass of the crowd below, hidden and secure behind his human shields. Lewis lost sight of him and shot by overhead, cursing silently.
He could leave his sled behind, drop down into the crowd himself, and go after the ELF. He had a face now, and a general position. But if he did, and couldn't find the ELF fast enough, the human thralls would fall on him, on their master's orders, and tear him apart. They'd probably be weeping while they did it, but that wouldn't help Lewis.
He turned his sled around in a tight arc, and there was Finn, slumped Half-conscious over the controls of his drifting sled. The ELFs' attack must have got through his esp-blocker. Lewis hit the accelerator on his sled, but the nearest ELF had already shot through the sky to drop onto Finns sled, grinning widely at the thought of possessing and then draining so famous a Paragon. And Finn Durandal turned around, also grinning, and the ELF knew he'd been had. Finn's hand came up with a disrupter in it. This close, the sled's esp-blocker was strong enough to blow away the ELFs psionic defenses, and Finn laughed softly at the look on the ELF's face. At that range, the disrupter bolt tore the ELFs head right off his shoulders.
Lewis cheered and whooped, but his voice was quickly lost in the roar of shock and anger that went up from the other ELFs, as they dropped quickly back into the safety of their crowd. Finn ignored the cheer and the lamentations. He just kicked the headless body off his sled, and went looking for someone else to kill.
Out on the sands, a hundred or so of the crowd had been sent forth by the controlling minds to shout ELF propaganda at the hovering Arena security cameras. The rogue espers knew that by now the major news media would have struck a deal with the hiding Arena security people, to allow the media access to the security camera feeds, so they could broadcast the atrocity to their viewers live, as it happened. News commentators were probably already doing anguished voice-overs, decrying the horror and tragedy of it all, but the bosses knew what sucked in the viewers. Human blood and suffering, in close-up. The ELFs knew that too, and were taking advantage of it.
So men and women who'd been made to tear out their own eyes and cut off their own noses, their hands dripping with the blood of innocents, chanted ELF demands to the unblinking cameras, calling for their own subjugation to ELF rule and the destruction of the esper gestalt. They sneered at the Paragons who'd come to save them, laughed at the dead and dying in the crowd, and taunted the viewers with their own helplessness. We are unstoppable, said the ELFs, through their thralls. And when we're finished here, we'll come for you. We'll come for all of you, and play with you till you break.
And in the cheap seats, on the terraces, and in the private boxes, the possessed crowd raped and tortured and maimed each other, howling and crying like the damned as they did.
Lewis was so distressed and angry by now, he could hardly breathe for the tightness in his chest. Hot tears stung his eyes, but he wouldn't give in to them. There'd be time for grief later. He glared about him; studying the sands
, suddenly sure he was missing something. Where were the gladiators? There would have been dozens out on the sands, entertaining the crowd, when the ELFs attacked. They must have run for cover the moment they realized what was happening, protected by their own esp-blockers. (All gladiators were protected from all kinds of outside influence; how else could the betting be kept honest?) They were probably huddled together in their cells under the Arena. They should have stayed and fought, thought Lewis angrily, but he already knew what Finn would have said to that.
It's not their job. And they'd probably only have got in the way, anyway.
Lewis pushed that thought aside, to follow another. He was closing in on something, something important. The gladiators would have left the sands by the main entrance. Lewis shot across the sands towards the main gates, closing his mind if not his heart to the sounds of suffering all around him. Above the closed gates was a security control center, computers to run the automated systems. Like the security cameras… That at least was something he could do. Lewis took careful aim and blasted the center with his disrupter. The whole place blew apart in a satisfyingly large explosion, and all the security cameras went offline, dropping out of the air like dead birds.
The thralls on the sands screamed the ELFs' frustration, as they realized their propaganda wasn't going out any longer. No doubt the media bosses were also doing a certain amount of screaming at being denied such prime material, and no doubt there would be any number of official complaints to come, but Lewis decided he wouldn't worry about that until later.
He looked around to see what Finn was doing, and his stomach dropped. Finn's first thought was always to take out the bad guys. Preferably by the most direct route. Lewis saw immediately what the other Paragon was planning, and cried out to him, but it was too late. Finn wouldn't have listened anyway. He never did.
Finn drove his gravity sled into the crowd at full speed, plowing through them like a battering ram. Both he and the sled were protected by the force shield at its prow, and he slammed through the screaming people, throwing them aside, bloodied and broken, as he sped towards the ELF he'd located in the crowd. The ELF threw himself into the air, but he was too late. Finn raised the sled's prow just a little, and hit the ELF head-on at full speed. The sled's esp-blocker shut the ELF's powers down, and his body was splattered all over the gravity sled's force shield. And all it cost was fifty or so dead and maimed innocents who happened to be in the way of Finn's sled. Finn didn't look to see. He was already circling over the crowd again, looking for another target of opportunity.