"Sounds crowded," said Brett. "If I joined the oversoul, I'd have to give up all my secrets, wouldn't I?"
"We don't hide anything from each other," said Crow Jane. "We don't need to."
"Told you we had nothing in common. Look; I really wouldn't fit in. Trust me on this. I'm a rogue, not made to run with the pack, and I like it that way. I like knowing things that no one else knows, and always being one step ahead. You can't make me join you, against my will; can you?
"No," said Crow Jane, with a sigh. "And we wouldn't, if we could. That's the point. You'll find it very lonely, Brett, trying to live among humans when you're not human any longer. There's a closeness espers know that no one else could hope to understand. Don't you ever feel a need for love, or companionship, for tenderness and acceptance?"
"Wouldn't know what to do with them if I had them," Brett said briskly. "Don't let me keep you. I'm sure you have much more useful business you could be about."
Crow Jane patted his hand once, sadly, and then rose to her feet. "Watch out for the ELFs, Brett. They'd eat you alive. You've seen the Spider Harps; trust me, that's only the tip of the iceberg where the ELFs are concerned. They live to hate and kill. That's all they have, and all they are."
"I could… give you the location of the Spider Harps," Brett said slowly.
"We know where they are," said Crow Jane. "We've always known." Brett gaped at her. "Then why don't you do something about them?" Crow Jane smiled coldly. "What punishment could we offer, that could be worse than the hell they've made for themselves?"
"But… they're killing people! Killing and eating them…"
"What do you care? I thought you were a rogue, who walked alone?" Brett met her gaze steadily. "I'm a rogue, not a monster. I know the difference between crime and sin. I know evil when I see it. I'd kill them in a moment, if I thought I could get away with it."
"And we would kill them in a moment, if we thought we could," said Crow Jane. "But the Mater Mundi made them too well. Even the oversoul has its limitations. Their time will come. Stay away from the ELFs, Brett. They're all monsters, inside."
Brett snorted loudly, trying to project an assurance he didn't actually feel. "What part of rogue didn't you understand? I'm not interested in joining anyone's party."
"It's a bad time to be standing alone, Brett."
It was his turn to sigh. "Tell me about it."
And then she was gone, air rushing in to fill the space where she'd been. Brett leaned back in his pew, and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The oversoul was possibly the only thing that frightened him more than Finn Durandal. And Finn at least was content to let Brett be himself… even if Brett wasn't sure he liked that person very much anymore… He decided he'd think about that later. Right now, he had his orders. Find Rose bloody Constantine. He'd already tried her chamber under the Arena, and she wasn't there. And if she wasn't there, she could be anywhere. He was a bit lost as to where to start looking first. It wasn't as if she had any friends to go to, or even any outside interests… He could start by monitoring the peacekeeper comm channels; listen out for reports of mass carnage or excessive property destruction. Rose wasn't the kind to hide her appalling light under a bushel for long.
Brett sighed loudly, and got to his feet. He looked wistfully around him, savoring the peace and calm, and then he turned and walked steadily away from it.
Lewis Deathstalker stood outside the door to Anne Barclays office, trying to work up the courage to announce himself. He wasn't comfortable being back in the House that had pretty much disowned him, but he didn't know where else to go. And now that he was here, he still didn't know what to do. He looked at the implacably closed door before him, and it scared him. Anne was his oldest friend. He'd always been able to turn to her, for advice and help and comfort, but… he wasn't sure he was welcome here anymore. So much had changed between them, in so short a time; almost against his will, they had both become different people. 1 know where you've been, she had said. I can smell her on you. Lewis looked up at the surveillance camera, set just above the doorframe. The little red light was on, so he knew it was watching him. Knew she was watching him.
"I need to talk to you, Anne," he said steadily. "There are… decisions I have to make. I can't do it on my own. Can I come in?"
There was no response. He tried the door handle, but it wouldn't budge. She'd locked him out. Turned her back on him.
"Anne; please. We have to talk. This is important. I don't… know what to do. You've spent most of your life telling me what I should be doing. Don't let me down now."
He tried a smile, right into the camera lens, but it didn't feel very successful. He called her name again, but there was only the locked door and the watching eye of the camera. People passing by in the narrow corridor looked at him oddly. He ignored them. A slow hot anger began to build in his heart. He hit the door with his fist, and kicked it, and the door shuddered in its frame, but still it didn't open. So Lewis drew his disrupter and shot the lock out. The energy beam vaporized the lock and blew the whole door inwards, tearing the door right off its hinges. The door hit the floor of the office and skidded on, the solid metal crumpled and steaming. Even at its lowest setting, the energy beam had still plunged on across the office to blow up one of the security monitors on the far wall. It had burst into flames, and thick black smoke billowed across Anne's office. A fire alarm activated, and the piercing sound of the siren seemed very loud in the quiet.
Lewis walked slowly forwards into Anne's office, through the gap where the door had been. He kicked the buckled door to one side, and advanced steadily on Anne, who was spraying the burning monitor with chemical foam, cursing furiously all the while. Lewis stopped in the center of the office, and watched her do it. His ugly face was set and stern, and his eyes were very cold. Out in the corridors behind him, he could hear people shouting and running. The fire reluctantly subsided under half a ton of chemical foam, though smoke still drifted heavily on the air. Anne lowered the fire extinguisher, breathing heavily, and spun round to glare at Lewis.
"Knock knock," he said calmly.
"Have you gone crazy, Deathstalker? Have you finally lost it? So help me, if that fire had set off the sprinklers and soaked all my papers, I'd have gutted you with the nearest letter opener! Look what you've done to my office!"
"Guess whether I give a damn," said Lewis, and something in his flat, cold voice gave Anne pause. In all their years, he'd never spoken to her like that before.
Lewis heard running feet approaching, and he turned unhurriedly to look out into the corridor. A dozen security men were charging towards Anne's office, all of them armed with swords and guns, though they hadn't drawn them yet. They saw Lewis looking out at them, and skidded to a halt before him. They took in the gap where the door had been, looked past Lewis at the damaged office, and at the fuming Anne, and then they took a good look at Lewis. At his face, and his eyes, and the gun still in his hand, though it wasn't pointing at anyone in particular just yet. Several of the security guards started to back away. Their leader stood his ground, though his mouth had gone very dry. There was danger on the air, they could all feel it; real and imminent. The security leader swallowed hard. He took his job very seriously, but no one was paying him enough to take on the Deathstalker.
"Is… everything all right here? Sir Champion?"
Lewis looked at him for a long moment, his eyes cold and terribly thoughtful. "Nice reaction time," he said finally. "But you're not needed here. You can go now. Isn't that right, Anne?"
Anne moved forwards, keeping a cautious distance between herself and the man who had once been her closest friend. There was something about Lewis; something in the calm, steady stance, and the dark, dangerous eyes, and the gun he still hadn't put away or even lowered… She suddenly thought that he looked like a man who'd been pushed that little bit too far. Who didn't care about anything anymore, because everything that mattered to him had already been taken away. And since t
his was Lewis Deathstalker… that made him very dangerous indeed. She looked from him to the security people and back again, and Lewis smiled slowly. It didn't touch his eyes, and when he spoke again, his voice was colder and uglier than his face could ever be.
"What are you going to do, Anne? Swear out a complaint against me? Tell the guards to arrest me? Perhaps you think I'll go quietly… I wouldn't put money on it. I really wouldn't. I'm going to talk to you; one way or the other. Send these guards away, Anne. Old friend. Before I have to do something that I might or might not regret later."
Two of the security men turned and ran, and the others looked like they wanted to. They were all seconds away from actions that could never be taken back, or made up for later, and everyone there knew it. Lewis's smile widened. Anne stepped quickly forwards, to put herself between Lewis and the security guards.
"It's all right," she said quickly to the security leader. "Everything's fine. It's all just a misunderstanding. There's nothing here for you to worry about. The Deathstalker and I will… clear things up. You can return to your stations. Very good reaction time. I'll see you all get commendations. You can go now. Oh; and send someone to fix my door, would you? Thank you very much."
The security men looked at each other, shrugged pretty much in unison, and ostentatiously took their hands away from their weapon belts. They knew they weren't getting the whole story, and probably never would, but they all had enough experience and common sense to let it go. Some things you were better off not knowing; especially when it involved the real movers and shakers of the Empire. To his credit, the security leader hesitated, looking at Anne, but she shook her head firmly, and he rounded up his people and led them off. It was going to be one of those days, he could tell. Though any day you ended up not having to go head to head with the Deathstalker after all was a good day, by definition.
Lewis watched them go, waiting till they'd all rounded the far corner before finally holstering his disrupter. He was almost sure he wouldn't have used it. Almost. Anne relaxed a little, and put down the heavy fire extinguisher. Lewis turned around and considered the buckled steel door lying on the floor. He picked it up, his muscles straining only a little, and leaned it against the doorjamb so that it more or less filled the gap again. He looked around him, picked up his usual chair that had somehow got overturned in the excitement, set it down facing Anne, and sat on it.
"So; how's life treating you, Anne? Any chance of a cup of coffee? I could use a good cup of coffee."
Anne moved slowly over to the coffee maker, steaming quietly away in its corner as always. "I suppose you want some chocolate biscuits, too?"
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble."
Anne scowled at him as she poured coffee into a mug. "Look what you've done to my door… why didn't you just use your Paragon's skeleton key, you idiot? I know very well you never got around to turning it in. This is why Paragons were given the bloody things, so you wouldn't have to make a mess like this."
"Ah," said Lewis, accepting the steaming cup she thrust ungraciously at him. "It didn't occur to me. I've had a lot on my mind just recently. I haven't always been thinking too clearly."
Anne snorted loudly, and dropped into her own chair, facing him. "Trust me, Lewis; I've noticed."
And then they just sat there and looked at each other for a long time, almost like two strangers sizing each other up. The last of the drifting smoke disappeared as the extractor fans got to work on it, but it seemed to Anne that there was still something in the office with them. Unspoken words, perhaps. Decisions made, that could never be apologized for, or put right. There was a distance between them, a subtle tension that had never been there before. Even sitting still, sipping at his coffee, the Deathstalker looked dangerous. For the first time in her life, Anne realized that she didn't feel entirely safe in Lewis's presence.
"Oh God, Lewis," she said finally. "How have we come to this? What has Jes done to you? You used to have more sense…"
"I just wanted to be happy, for once."
"And to Hell with what it cost everyone else?"
"Love's a bitch sometimes," said Lewis.
"I wouldn't know," said Anne.
Another long pause, as both of them searched for the words that would make sense of what had happened to them. Words to bridge a widening gap, that was leading them both into different worlds. Words they could shout across the gap, like lifelines thrown from ships sailing in different directions.
"None of this was my choice," said Lewis. "I've lived so long without love, I thought I could live without it forever, if I had to. I had other things to give my life purpose, and meaning. I had duty, and honor. I had friends, good friends… friends I would have died for. I had work that mattered, and my life made a difference. I was happy; mostly. And then love comes along, right out of the blue, and I realized I'd never really known what happiness was. Only problem; I had to give up everything else that mattered to me to have it. Don't blame Jes for any of this. We were just… two people who should never have met, for everyone's sake but our own. We tried so hard to stay away from each other, Anne; to do the right thing, and to Hell with what it cost us. But the universe seemed almost to conspire to push us together."
"Oh sure," said Anne. "It's not your fault. It never is. The universe just pushed you right into bed."
Lewis scowled at her. "Don't try to make this out to be nothing but sex, Anne. I'm old enough to know the difference between my heart and my dick. I love her, and she loves me. And yes; we slept together. And it was wonderful."
"Good enough to sell your soul for? You're not telling me anything I don't already know, Lewis. And if I know, it won't be long before others know too. You can't keep a thing like this secret. Jes… isn't worth all this, Lewis. I've seen it all before, with other men. I've known her a lot longer than you have."
"This time it's different!"
"That's what they all say! You think you're the first man to come crying to me over Jes? I have been here before, and it always ends in tears."
"I thought she was your friend."
"She is. That's why I don't have any illusions about her. Though this time… I thought she'd have more sense. I thought you had more integrity! Don't come looking to me for forgiveness, or support. Don't expect me to pat you on the shoulder and say Hey, these things happen. This is treason we're talking about, Lewis! When this gets out, and you can bet your last credit it will, almost certainly sooner rather than later, it could destroy the Throne and the House and everything else we've spent our life supporting and believing in!"
"I know. But soon… it will all be over. She's going to marry Douglas, and I'm going off on the great Quest. And everyone will live happily ever after. Eventually."
Anne looked at him sharply. "There was something in your voice, just then… when you talked about the Quest. Don't you even believe in that anymore?"
Lewis hesitated, and looked away, unable to meet her eyes. He couldn't tell her Owen was dead. She wouldn't be able to keep it to herself. She'd feel duty bound to tell… someone, and once the word started spreading it would never stop. It would be all over the media… Lewis couldn't be responsible for that. It would be cruel to take away Humanity's last hope, in the face of the coming Terror. He looked back at Anne, trying to frame some comforting lie, but her eyes bored into his, and the words turned to ashes in his mouth.
"The AIs told you something, didn't they?" Anne said suddenly. "What is it? What could be so bad, that you don't want to tell me? What do they know, that they've kept from us?"
And still he couldn't tell her the truth, so he told her a partial truth instead.
"They showed me records… from the days of the Rebellion," he said quietly. "Showed me Owen and Hazel and the others, the people rather than the legends. It was… disconcerting, to see them as only human, rather than myths in the flesh. They were glorious, magnificent; great fighters. But they didn't look like miracle workers. Maybe humans, even those who've passed through th
e Madness Maze, won't be enough to stop something like the Terror. It might not be wise to pin all our hopes on them, even if we can find them."
"But… they had powers! They did… amazing things!"
"Did they? Or is that just part of the legend? The stories Robert and Constance made up, to inspire us? Shub told me many things, but in the end what I saw was just a man called Owen. A great man, certainly. But whatever my ancestor was, he wasn't the god we've been sold for the past two hundred years."
Anne frowned. "Maybe not. It doesn't matter. Your ancestor and his friends worked a miracle once, when they overthrew Lionstone and her evil Empire, and laid the foundations for our Golden Age. Maybe they can do it again. They could still be alive, out there, somewhere. The Quest is necessary, Lewis. We need to find Owen, if only to inspire us again. Tell me; if it turned out that you were the one to find the blessed Owen… what would you say to him?"
Lewis sighed. He'd tried to hint at the truth, but she didn't want to hear it. He considered her question honestly, surprised to find that the answer mattered to him, as well as to her.
"I think I'd ask him… where he found the strength, to make so many hard decisions. And perhaps… I'd ask him to come back and be the Deathstalker, so I wouldn't have to be anymore. Selfish, I know. But sometimes, this name weighs so damned much. People expect so much of me because of it. And just like Owen, I'm not allowed to be only human, with human needs and weaknesses…"
He rose abruptly from his chair and slammed the coffee mug down on Anne's desk, slopping hot coffee everywhere. He paced around the office, not looking at Anne, circling the confined space over and over again like a caged animal, while Anne watched him warily from her chair. He was scowling now, his eyes far away; his ugly face flushed with anger and frustration and something that might just have been despair. Barely suppressed violence showed in the bulging muscles of his arms, in the set of his shoulders, and the heavy tread of his feet. It frightened Anne to see Lewis like this; a strong man reduced to baffled indecision. He walked faster and faster, his hands knotted into fists so tight his knuckles showed white. Sooner or later he was going to lash out, and the only question was who was going to get hurt. Apart from himself.