Deathstalker Legacy

  "I don't know what to do, Anne!" His voice was harsh and ugly now, and she flinched at the sound of it. Lewis didn't notice. "All the things I believed in seem to have been built on sand, and the tide is washing it all away. No one's who I thought they were; not even me. Everywhere I look, my world is falling apart. The people have gone insane, all our great institutions have feet of clay, and the Terror is finally here and headed right down our throats. I finally find love, after so many years alone, and I have to walk away from it. Because just like my bloody ancestor, I'm not allowed to think about my own life, my own wants and needs and desires. I'm a Paragon and a Deathstalker, so I have to be better than that. I have… I have to…"

  He burst into tears, sudden harsh sounds that shook his whole body as the tears ran jerkily down his ugly face. He stopped pacing, and lashed out at the nearest wall with his fist. He hit the wall again and again, putting all his strength and desperation into every blow, bloodying his knuckles. Anne's hands went to her mouth as she clearly heard bones crack and break. Blood ran down the wall as Lewis's fist crashed into it again and again, and all the time he was crying like his heart would break. Anne rose slowly up out of her chair, walked up behind him, and hesitantly put one hand on his shoulder. He rounded on her, breathing hard, his face working violently, and then he hugged her to him, clinging to her like a child. She rocked him gently as he wept, murmuring soothing words as he buried his face in her neck. They held each other tightly, the way they used to back when they were children and the whole world had seemed to be against them. Finally Lewis ran out of tears, nothing left in him but a terrible, empty tiredness.

  And in the end, he was the one who let go first. Who straightened up, and gently pushed Anne away. He'd always been the one who'd been able to do the hard, harsh, necessary things. Anne stepped back, studying him with thoughtful eyes. Lewis found a clean handkerchief and dried his eyes. His hands were entirely steady. He looked at his bloody, broken hand, winced as the pain hit him for the first time, and awkwardly wrapped the handkerchief around it. Anne watched him do it, and felt a slow cold pain in her breast, where her heart would have been if she'd believed in sentimental things like hearts, and before she could stop herself the words came rushing out.

  "Lewis; maybe… maybe we could run away. You and me, together. Forget all this. Just… jump a ship, any ship, heading anywhere, and leave all this behind us. To Hell with it all, to Hell with everyone but us. Neither of us likes who and what we've become, since we came here. To this world, this city, these lives. It's not too late! We could still—“

  "No," Lewis said quietly. "No, we couldn't. Not and still have any respect for each other, or ourselves. I can't just walk away. I still have my responsibilities, my duty, and my honor. Tarnished a bit, perhaps, but they're the only things left in my life that still make sense. I couldn't give them up, and still be me. I've lost so much, and I'll have to give up even more; but I still know what it means, to be a Deathstalker."

  "Duty and responsibility," Anne said harshly. "I am so tired of those words. We gave our lives to them, but what did they ever do for us? Did they make us content? Did they make us happy?"

  "Could we ever be happy, somewhere else, knowing we'd turned our backs on the only things we'd ever really believed in? No, Anne; sometimes… you just have to suck it in, and play the cards you're dealt. Because to do anything else, would be to betray ourselves. To make our lives a lie."

  "This is your last chance, Lewis," said Anne. Her eyes were pleading, but her voice was very cold.

  "I know," said Lewis. "Trust me, I know." He stepped forward, and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. "But sometimes the only honorable thing left to do, is to take your hand away from the lifeboat, and drown. Good-bye, Anne. I don't think we'll be meeting again. First, I've got to get this hand fixed, and then I've got a lot of work to do, planning the logistics for the Quest. I won't be at the Wedding. And I don't think… I'll be coming back. Let Douglas and Jesamine have their life together, without a specter at the feast to spoil it." He smiled finally, sadly. "Who knows; maybe I'll find an answer to all my woes somewhere out there, on the Quest. There sure as hell isn't one here."

  He left her office then, not looking back, ducking past the door leaning precariously in the doorway. Anne watched him go in silence, refusing to cry so much as a single tear, and finally she turned away. There was work to be done, and calls to be made.

  Douglas Campbell, King and Speaker of the Empire, did what he always did when he was lost and confused and needed to find his way again. He went home. All the way home, back to the old manor house in the country, where he'd been raised as a child. Far away from the city, far away from anywhere, House Campbell stood alone in its extensive grounds and gardens, home and sanctuary to generations of Campbells down the many centuries.

  Douglas's father, William, had retired there after he gave up the Crown, to putter around his gardens and play at being the historian he'd always fancied himself. He seemed happy enough to hear his son was coming to visit. Douglas hadn't told him why he was coming. Truth be told, he wasn't entirely sure. Mostly he just needed to get away from all the noise, from all the decisions he had to make, from all the people so desperate to get his attention. Douglas wanted somewhere he could escape from the pressures for a while, somewhere he could think in peace.

  Home.

  He piloted the flyer himself, taking neither an official pilot or a bodyguard. Just him and the flyer, alone in the sky. His many confidants and advisers, Anne most definitely among them, had blown their collective stack when he informed them bluntly of his intentions, but he refused to be browbeaten into changing his mind and doing the sensible thing. He'd been a Paragon a hell of a lot longer than he'd been King, and he was quite capable of looking after himself for a while. Besides; the flyer had its own guns and force shields, and so many computers it practically flew itself.

  It took Douglas over an hour to reach the old manor house, even flying at top speed in an air lane reserved exclusively for him. Douglas didn't mind. It gave him time to relax properly, and he enjoyed looking down at the passing scenery. Logres was still a bright and glorious world, away from the sprawling cities, full of beautiful vistas and grand rolling views.

  It occurred to him that this was the real Logres, the real homeworld of Empire; not the overcrowded warrens of the cities. Which were indeed packed full of marvels and wonders and sights to please the eye and astound the heart; but sometimes you could have too much of a good thing.

  Douglas landed easily on the private landing pad at the boundary of the family property, and after he'd powered down the systems and disembarked, he spent some time just standing on the edge of the pad and looking out over the expertly landscaped grounds stretching away before him. It seemed to him that the gardens had never looked so beautiful. (He tried not to see the armed and armored guards silently patrolling the perimeter. He knew they were necessary; even though William was no longer King, he was still a target for all kinds of hate groups. The ELFs, the Shadow Court, and many other terrorists and scumbags would just love to get their hands on William, for ransom or revenge, or just to put pressure on the current King. So the guards were necessary. Douglas knew that. But still they detracted from his happy childhood memories of his old home, so he did his best to ignore them.)

  The gardens were breathtaking at this time of the year, blooming even though it was midwinter everywhere else, thanks to some clever programming of the weather control satellites. Rank, even retired rank, had its privileges. The great green lawns, expertly cropped and shaped, stretched away before him for miles, immaculately laid out. There were low hedges and peaceful walkways lined with rows of trees, and marvelous flowerbeds blazing with colors, like so many rainbows fallen to the earth; all planned and maintained with almost ruthless geometric precision. The flowers came from dozens of worlds, nurtured and protected by a whole cadre of specially trained technicians, for whom gardener was really too limiting a word.

 
The trees had come from all across the Empire, carefully transplanted and preserved. Some no longer existed outside these gardens. There were artificial lakes brimming with all kinds of decorative life, tumbling streams crossed by delicately carved wooden bridges, and not far from the center of the garden there was a great hedge maze of cunning design. Douglas got lost in it once, when he was a small child. He'd been forbidden to enter it on his own, so of course he did. He was that kind of child. Eventually his increasingly tearful cries led his family to him. He still had nightmares about the maze, sometimes, though he never told anyone that. Whenever he came home, he always made it a point to walk through the maze from end to end, in and out, just to prove to himself that it no longer had any control over him. Except of course if it hadn't, he wouldn't have needed to do it every damned visit. Douglas was smart enough to know that, but he did it anyway. Because.

  (He sometimes wondered if this was why he had such ambivalent feelings about the Madness Maze. He hoped not. He'd hate to think his subconscious was that petty. And, indeed, that obvious.)

  He left the landing pad behind him, and walked off into the gardens, following the neat gravel paths when he felt like it, and wandering defiantly across the open lawns when he didn't. There was no one to tell him not to anymore. He was the King. The sky was a clear, clear blue with hardly a cloud in sight, and the air was full of the scent of blooming flowers and fresh-cut grass, of rich wet turf, and growing things. Such a peaceful place, whose only movement was the slow turning of the seasons that even the weather control could only soothe, not interfere with. Birds sang and insects buzzed, and somewhere off in the distance Douglas could hear the slow, mournful cries of the peacocks, calling to each other. He walked on, taking his time, strolled down a shadowy tunnel of inward-leaning trees, and was suddenly struck by a nostalgia so overwhelming it was almost painful. He knew every inch of these gardens. When he'd been a child, they'd been his whole world. He hadn't known there was another, harsher world outside it, and wouldn't have cared if he had.

  His parents had kept his duty and his destiny from him for as long as they could. They wanted him to enjoy his childhood.

  He crossed an old stone bridge, so artfully constructed it didn't need mortar to hold the stones together. A fast-moving stream bubbled and burbled beneath him, stocked with every kind of fish a fisherman might desire. (Unless you wanted one of the big bastards, the kind that fight back, in which case there was an ocean only half an hour or so away.) There were animals in the garden too, but they were there to be petted and enjoyed, not chased or hunted. The gardens were a place of peace, of contemplation. Everything in its place, so nothing ever changed. The gardens had been carefully planned so that the seams were never visible, designed and laid out centuries ago, long before even Lionstone's time; by a master landscaper who knew he'd never live long enough to see it all come into its final glory. The Campbell who'd ordered the garden had known the same thing, but hadn't cared. It was for his Family. The Campbells took the long view, in those days. When they thought Clan Campbell was forever, and nothing would ever change…

  And now the old Empire was thrown down, the old ways had been put aside… but the gardens still flourished. Clan Campbell was not what it had once been, but that was probably a good thing. Douglas walked through the ancient gardens, and thought dark thoughts about the impermanence of man and his plans. Man could disappear tomorrow, and the gardens would survive quite happily without him. Though of course there'd be no one to grieve as the gardens went slowly to the wild, and lost their artificially maintained beauty.

  Finally he came to the very center of the gardens (ignoring the hedge maze for now) and there was his brother James's grave. It was a simple affair; just a basic stone with James's name on it, to mark his final resting place, topped with a flame that always burned and always would. Brother James. The man who should have been King. One brother stood and looked down at another, and envied him his peaceful sleep; while off to one side their father looked on, waiting as requested. When James died his sudden, stupid, and entirely unexpected death, public sentiment and the media had called loudly for him to be laid to rest in the old Campbell mausoleum, along with generations of the Campbell dead, right in the heart of the Parade of the Endless. Some even called for James to have a special place in the Cathedral. But William and Niamh said no. He was their son, so they brought him home, so he could sleep in a familiar place.

  Douglas looked about him. It was a nice location, calm and peaceful, on the side of a gently sloping hill looking out over the placid waters of an artificial lake. For a while visitors were allowed, as long as they made a donation to charity, but eventually William and Niamh put a stop to that, when the visiting crowds threatened to turn his grave into a shrine. The ever-burning flame was enough. He was their son. He belonged to them, and no one else. Niamh was buried there now, sleeping beside her son, as she'd wanted. When the time came William would join them, and Douglas thought that perhaps he would like to rest here as well. He'd seen the old Clan Campbell mausoleum, where Crawford and Finlay and all the other great names of the Family had been interred, and the grim cold sepulchre had struck Douglas as a cold and joyless place to spend eternity. Robert and Constance had changed that tradition, as they'd changed so many others. They'd left strict instructions for their bodies to be cremated, and the ashes scattered over the gardens. They might have turned people they'd known into legends, but they had no wish to be revered or venerated themselves. Douglas liked to think that a few last particles of his grandfather and grandmother were still blowing about the gardens. When he was younger, he'd run around taking great deep breaths, hoping to breathe some of them in, so that he would be great too.

  (William and Niamh had explained duty and destiny to him by then, and he'd understood just enough to feel distinctly scared and unworthy.)

  "Are you going to stand there brooding all day, son?" William said dryly. "I was under the impression you'd come all this way to talk to me. The word urgent was used quite a lot, as I recall."

  "Sorry, Dad," said Douglas. "I've had a lot on my mind just recently."

  William snorted. "I can imagine. Which of your many appalling problems brings you home this time?"

  Douglas looked at his father. The old man actually looked better for having retired. Not nearly so fragile, he was standing straighter, and his eyes seemed sharp and alert. He was wearing old comfortable clothes, crumpled and grubby, of the kind Niamh would never have let him get away with.

  "You tried to warn me, about being King," Douglas said heavily. "And as usual, I didn't listen. I don't feel up to the job, Father."

  "No one ever does," William said gruffly. "I spent most of my reign convinced that any day now the House would wake up and realize I wasn't anything like the King my father was, and would demand I give up my Crown so they could give it to someone better qualified. You're doing well enough, son. I keep up with the news. The Neuman riot was a mess, but you did well to take out so many ELFs at the Parade of the Paragons." He paused, and fixed Douglas with a stern gaze. "Though I have to say, I'm still wondering just what you had to promise the oversoul, in return for their help in suppressing the Neuman rioters. The espers never do anything for free."

  "They didn't ask for anything specific," said Douglas. "Just asked for my… good will. I allowed them to be involved in taking down the ELFs at the Parade. Whether that'll be enough, we'll just have to wait and see… Dad; we need to talk about the Terror."

  William sighed and turned away, and looked out over the gardens. "It's very peaceful here. Far away from all the troubles of the world. I'm glad you're King now, Douglas, and not me. I wouldn't know what to do. Probably just sit on my Throne and dither, hoping someone else would come up with a plan. Whatever you decide to do, it's bound to be better than anything I could suggest." He turned back to face Douglas. "You have to have faith in your judgement. I do. I raised you to be a warrior, boy, and you have never disappointed me. You're doing a good job, Dougla
s. You are every inch the King your mother and I always hoped you'd be."

  Douglas was touched. He put out his hands to his father, and William held them tightly. And after that, Douglas couldn't bring himself to discuss his other problem, Jesamine and Lewis, the real reason he'd come all this way. It would have seemed so… petty. So Douglas walked with his father through the gardens, talking of other things, and later they had a good dinner together. When evening finally fell, Douglas gave his father a hug and then flew back to the city, and his Throne. Leaving peace and contentment behind, to take up the burden of his duty once again. Because every child has to leave home eventually, to become a man.

  Lewis Deathstalker was working in his apartment when the call came. An anonymous functionary called for Lewis to appear urgently at the House, and then signed off before he could be questioned. Lewis's first thought was Why now? Invitations to appear at Parliament had been conspicuous by their absence for some time now. The King had made it very clear he didn't need or want his Champion at his side anymore. And, this was a very inopportune moment to be called away. Lewis was sitting on the floor of his apartment, surrounded by paperwork, hunched over his computer screen and stabbing at the keyboard with two fingers. There was a lot of work to be done, preparing for the grand Quest of the Paragons, and somehow most of it had fallen to Lewis. The Paragons themselves had done nothing but argue about who was going where, ever since the Quest was announced, and someone had to sort out the mess without hurting too many feelings, and coordinate the various missions so that they wouldn't end up stumbling over each other.

  It helped that Lewis had been a Paragon, and knew most of them personally. He also knew where a lot of the bodies were buried; sometimes literally. No one argued with Lewis.