Deathstalker Return

  He would show them what a real Campbell could do, with vengeance in his heart.

  But first he had to clean up his room. He couldn't live in this dump anymore. Just looking at some of it made his skin crawl. And simple repetitious manual jobs always helped him think. It took him a long time to clear the mess up, but he had a lot of thinking to do.

  Over the next few weeks, Douglas sweated his way through every punishing exercise he could think of, while watching brother James make the rounds of all the very best news and gossip shows on his viewscreen. It seemed like James was everywhere, dashing from public appearance to public appearance, his every move covered by all the celebrity channels. Looking big and bluff and handsome with his bright eyes and bashful smile, James was the biggest news sensation since the return of the Terror. The people were desperate for good news, and the return of the man who should have been King was just what they needed. He wasn't Owen Deathstalker, but he would do.

  William, of course, was painted as the very blackest of villains, who only reluctantly kept James alive in case something happened to Douglas while he was playing at being a Paragon. Should James have been needed, it seemed William and Niamh had arranged to have a powerful esper delete all of James's memories since the crash, so he would know nothing of his imprisonment. This particular announcement led to open hostility against all espers, even though the oversoul went out of their way to deny that any of their people had ever been involved in such a scheme. No one believed them. There were demonstrations bordering on riots in cities on worlds all across the Empire, calling for strict new controls on all espers. From all across the Empire, espers quietly made their way to Logres, and to the floating city of New Hope, where they holed up behind powerful protections and waited for the people to come to their senses again.

  They should have known better. The people had a new hero to believe in, and they didn't want their precious fairy story spoiled.

  Douglas exercised ceaselessly, ate all the right foods, and pushed his soft body back into shape again. He worked out regularly with his sword and shield, and the old skills came flooding back. He wanted to be ready for when Finn dropped the other shoe.

  He missed Jesamine, and Lewis. He missed having people around him he could trust. But he had no time to indulge his own problems, when the Empire's problems were clearly so much bigger.

  Douglas seemed to be the only person in the whole Empire who wasn't impressed by James. This larger-than-life hero on the viewscreen wasn't the easygoing, intelligent, deeply moral man Douglas had heard about all his life. This new James was just too perfect. He always knew the right thing to say, even if it didn't seem to mean much on closer examination. He always came out with the right answers, even if they didn't always fit the question. He was a great one for the barbed sound bite, delivered with a flashing smile and just a hint of a wink, and the public ate it up with spoons.

  Douglas thought James was beginning to look overrehearsed, and he still wasn't very good at the personal stuff. He was fine at shaking hands with people and asking interested questions, but he couldn't ad-lib to save his life. Fortunately, there were always some of Finn's people close at hand to whisk him away on urgent business, if it became clear James was getting out of his depth. Douglas thought James was hollow, all surface charm, with nothing original in his head that hadn't been put there. It bothered Douglas greatly that no one else could see it. None so blind… he supposed. Douglas hadn't been allowed to meet with James since that first day, but he kept pushing. Sooner or later, Finn and Anne would have to let the two brothers meet again, because it would look decidedly odd if they didn't. And when that finally happened, Douglas was determined to be ready with a whole bunch of really awkward questions.

  He no longer had any doubts that James was a fake of some kind. For all his coaching, this James still made occasional factual errors about his life before the accident. Small things, perhaps, that only another member of Clan Campbell could have known, but Douglas spotted them immediately. His whole early life Douglas had been compared (usually unfavorably) to his glorious deceased older brother. When James was occasionally caught in an error, and called on it by an interviewer, James just turned up his smile another notch and blamed his uncertain memory on residual problems from his head injuries in the crash. And then no one would push it, for fear of seeming to bully an invalid.

  The undoubted highlight of James's media rounds was a guest appearance on that most popular of vid soaps: The Quality. By then in its triumphant fifth season, with two shows every day and a compilation at weekends, The Quality presented a highly idealized view of sin, scandal, and outrageous clothes among the aristocrats of the Empress Lionstone's time. It was required viewing all across the Empire, if only so one could join in on what everyone else was talking about.

  James played his ancestor Finlay Campbell—badly. He had charm but no talent, and his performance was more wooden than most of the furniture, but no one cared. You didn't watch a soap like The Quality for the subtlety of the performances anyway. James appeared opposite the undisputed star of the show, the almost impossibly beautiful and radiant Treasure Mackenzie, who played the social butterfly Chantelle. She wasn't that great an actress herself, but since it had been said truly of her that if she'd been any more voluptuous she would have been in 4D, no one gave a damn. As long as she kept smiling, taking deep breaths, and threatening to lose her clothes at every twist and turn of the plot, people kept watching. So Treasure floated becomingly around James, who read his lines carefully from the idiot boards and concentrated on looking good.

  That episode gained the highest ratings the show had ever known.

  Douglas turned the viewscreen off and studied himself in the mirror. He looked good. He'd burned off all the flab, and he looked like a fighter again. His mind was sharp and clear, and he was more than ready to remind his many enemies that a Campbell was never more dangerous than when he had nothing left to lose. But it would have to be done slowly, and subtly. He would have to continue to act confused and beaten down in public—especially when Finn and Anne were around—until he could prove to the people who mattered that he was his old self again and pick up some useful allies. The problem was, whom to trust? How deep had the rot gone? During his self-pitying seclusion, Finn had taken the opportunity to quietly replace all the King's people with new faces loyal only to the Durandal. Douglas's guards, and even his servants, were gone; and a lot of people he'd considered his friends wouldn't even answer his calls anymore. Douglas had been very carefully isolated, so that even if he did recover from his fugue, he'd have no one to turn to.

  But there were still a few people that even Finn couldn't corrupt. Emma Steel, for example, the Paragon from Mistworld who was now patrolling Logres. And maybe Stuart Lennox, Lewis's replacement Paragon from Virimonde. If only Douglas could work out a way to contact them privately.

  And sometimes he still thought about Lewis and Jesamine. And wondered quietly if, since he'd been so wrong about so many other things, just maybe he might have been wrong about them too. He wanted to believe they'd never been traitors. He had loved them both, after all.

  Next to Douglas, James had the biggest and most luxurious set of private chambers in the palace. Anne had provided them for him, by the simple expedient of kicking out the original occupants and defying them to do anything about it. The original owners had enough sense to see which way the wind was blowing, and left without making any fuss. They in turn kicked out someone lower in status than they, and took over their quarters. For the next few days, no one could move in the palace, because the corridors were full of people changing rooms. The order to house James in the palace had King Douglas's name on it, but everyone knew it really came from Anne—and by extension, Finn.

  James didn't actually like his new quarters much. They were too big, too opulent, too overpowering. He wandered from room to room feeling lost and ill at ease, afraid to touch anything in case he broke it. His quarters were full of state-of-the-art te
ch that he didn't know how to work. He wasn't allowed any personal servants—they might learn something, and talk. James had a favorite chair, tucked away in one corner of his bedroom, in which he spent most of his time off. The problem was, these were quarters fit for a King, and James didn't want to be a King. The thought alone scared him. He was just as scared of being James Campbell, given all the expectations that came with the name. But he was even more frightened of Finn Durandal, so he kept all these thoughts strictly to himself. The only person he ever dared to say anything to was Anne, but although she was never too busy to smile and comfort him, she never really listened to anything he said.

  James belonged to Finn and Anne. He knew that. They owned him, body and soul. He was their creation.

  He was busy practicing sincere smiles in front of the parlor mirror when Finn arrived late one morning, bringing with him the clone representative Elijah du Katt. James started trembling the moment he saw du Katt. It was a terrible thing to meet one's own maker. James still had nightmares about some of the invasive surgeries du Katt had put him through, on Finn's orders. But he didn't make any fuss when du Katt unpacked his diagnostics kit; he just took off his frilly shirt and stood waiting patiently. He didn't want to make Finn angry. Du Katt took his time with the diagnostics, checking James's readings carefully against the expected optimums. He finally sniffed a few times and started packing away his equipment. James relaxed just a little, and quietly put his shirt back on as du Katt talked with Finn about him as though he weren't there.

  "He's in excellant shape, Sir Durandal. No deviation from the original process. The most perfect clone I've ever produced."

  "I should hope so, considering how much you and your people charged me to make him," said Finn.

  "Ah," said du Katt, smiling and shrugging, "clones aren't cheap, especially when they're illegal, and you did want something special. With all the improvements I've built into this model, he's practically a Hadenman."

  Finn frowned suddenly. "I told you: no implants. No tech. Nothing that might show up on a scanner. I hope you haven't been too creative, Elijah. If I've got to tear this model apart and start over, I'll do the same to you. Slowly."

  "Relax, Sir Durandal, relax!" Du Katt's hands fluttered nervously, and his attempt at an easy laugh wasn't at all convincing. "I can assure you, he's entirely organic. He's faster, stronger, and has better reflexes than most of the fighters you'll find in the Arena these days. A born killer, just as you requested."

  "Pity he isn't a bit smarter," said Finn, studying James dispassionately. "It's a real pain in the neck having to teach him his answers to questions, parrot fashion, all the time, just to get him through interviews."

  Du Katt shrugged again. "He's just as intelligent as the original, potentially—possibly even more so. He just lacks a context to work from. You can't learn everything from books. A certain lack of social skills is only to be expected. He's only six months old, after all!"

  He laughed, but Finn didn't join in, so he quickly stopped. James just stood there, his face carefully blank, waiting to be told what to do. He never volunteered anything. That wasn't his place. And Finn hurt him if he ever looked like he was forgetting his place. In public, James was always calm and confident and perfectly poised, because that was what Finn wanted. In private, James was quiet, diffident, and eager to please—because he wanted to go on living.

  Finn finally waved du Katt away and looked upon his creation, his possession, his latest weapon. And smiled, remembering.

  Finn Durandal personally led the raid on House Campbell, accompanied by his personal guard of six returned Paragons and four assault ships full of Church Militant and Pure Humanity troops. Armed and armored, fanatics to a man and a woman, pumped full of righteousness and knockoff battle drugs, they were sworn to fight and die in Finn's name, for the cause. Cannon fodder, basically. Finn commanded the lead ship himself. Some pleasures were just too tasty to be shared with anyone.

  William's security people challenged him automatically as he approached, only to relax once they recognized his face. Finn had been to House Campbell many times before, as an old friend of Douglas. All he had to do was make vague allusions to a possible security alarm, and William ordered all his defenses dropped and invited Finn and all his people in. As easy as that. William had no reason to distrust the Imperial Champion.

  Finn's ships landed unchallenged on the House's private landing pads, and his attack troops immediately spilled out, armed to the teeth and shouting their vicious slogans. Finn would have liked more of an element of surprise on his side, but he had to make allowances when working with thugs and fanatics. Strategy was a mystery to people blind to everything but their cause. So Finn just pointed them in the right direction and let them get on with it. They charged off the landing pads and into the grounds, killing everyone they saw. The security guards went down first, followed by gardeners and servants and old family retainers. Only the guards had weapons, of course, and most never even got a chance to use them. Those few who did were quickly outnumbered and overrun. Everyone else died where they stood. Or, if they ran, they were shot in the back. Finn had no interest in taking any prisoners.

  No one had time to send a warning. And Finn had come prepared, with special equipment in his lead ship, to make sure no comm messages would leave House Campbell. He sauntered unhurriedly across the great green lawns towards the House, accompanied by his six beaming Paragons, enjoying the smell of smoke in the air as his people set fire to the ancient gardens. Trees blazed like torches, flower beds became ashes, and the old hedge maze burned brightly like a funeral pyre. And everywhere there were dead men and women, their blood and brains and guts seeping out onto the neatly cropped grass. The ancestral grounds of House Campbell had become an abattoir, and Finn Durandal couldn't have been happier.

  He strode like a conqueror into the great hall of House Campbell, casually destroying irreplaceable treasures as he went, and warmed his hands before the great open fireplace. It was an unseasonably chilly morning. He looked around, smiling, as his people dragged a beaten and bloodied William Campbell into what had once been his hall, and dropped the old man in a heap at Finn's feet. He lay there, gasping and shuddering, while Finn looked thoughtfully at the thugs in their Church Militant armor. They stirred uneasily under his gaze.

  "Did he put up a fight?" said Finn. "I wouldn't have thought the old man had it in him."

  "Not… as such," said one of the thugs. "But he said things…"

  "Oh well," said Finn. "I don't suppose it matters. I never liked him anyway. And I do so admire zeal. Bring him outside."

  Finn led the way out of the house and across the devastated grounds, until they came at last to James's grave. William stumbled along and had trouble keeping up, but the Paragons kept him moving with kicks and general abuse. They were having a good time. Finn finally let the old man drop to the grass at the foot of his eldest son's grave, while he looked casually out over the artificial lake. Dead swans lay floating in the bloody waters. Finn's smile widened. He approved of thoroughness. William slowly struggled up onto his knees, and looked at Finn, his bloody mouth quivering with outrage. One of the Paragons placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, to make sure he stayed on his knees.

  "For God's sake, why, Finn? What's the meaning of this? Does Douglas know you're here?"

  Finn took his time answering. "Dear Douglas knows very little about what goes on, these days," he said, smiling charmingly. "But it wouldn't matter if he did. Douglas is a spent force, as are you; and neither of you matters a damn in the scheme of things anymore. I did all this… because I could. Because it pleased me. Don't look for rescue. All of your own people are dead, and no one will be coming from outside. Your day is over, William. And mine is just beginning."

  "How could you do this, Finn?" William said numbly. "You're Douglas's friend. You were always welcome here. You and he used to have such good times here…"

  "Things change, people change," said Finn. "You might say I
've grown up since then. You never really knew me, William. But you do now.

  William looked uncertainly at James's grave. "What do you want here? What could possibly be worth all this death and destruction?"

  "I'm glad you asked that, William. I'm here for James. No good to anyone just lying in the ground, but I have a use for him." He leaned over the headstone, and casually blew out the eternal flame that burned there. "Dig him up, boys."

  William cried out angrily, and tried to surge to his feet, but the Paragons hit him, and he fell helplessly to the ground.

  "Ah, William," said Finn. "Children are such hostages to fortune, aren't they? Even when they're dead."

  Finn's people dug up the grave while William watched helplessly. It didn't take them long to get down to the coffin, break open the lid, and reveal the corpse. The funeral technicians had done an excellent job. Still perfectly preserved, all of James's many injuries had been cunningly disguised. He might only have been sleeping. William made a soft low sound of distress, but no one paid him any attention. Finn clambered down into the open grave, so he could look James in the face, close up. Finally he nodded, smiled, and then leaned forward and kissed James on his dead lips.

  "You'll do. Du Katt, take your samples."

  "No names!" hissed the clone representative, as he hurried forward. "You promised, no names!"

  "Oh, get on with it," said Finn.

  Du Katt waited for Finn to vacate the grave, and then clambered clumsily down to take his cell samples. He was swiftly efficient, though he was careful never to look at the corpse's face. When he was finished, he got out of the grave as fast as he could, and Finn then nodded to one of his people, who dropped a small transmutation bomb into the hole. A few seconds later, the mortal remains of the noble James Campbell had been reduced to undifferentiated protoplasmic slime that might have been anyone or anything. William cried harsh, racking tears while Finn smiled on him.