Deathstalker Return

  Back at Base Thirteen, the man called Carrion was still studying his viewscreens and considering his options, when another man appeared out of nowhere. Carrion felt his presence immediately and spun round, and then he saw who it was and smiled.

  "I should have known. With so much of the past repeating itself, it was inevitable that you'd turn up eventually. Hello, John. You're looking good, for a dead man. Why is it you only ever come to see me when you want something?"

  "Hello, Sean," said John Silence. "It has been a long time, hasn't it? You know, you're all that's left of my past now. Everyone else I knew from the old days is either dead or missing. But still you and I go on, too stubborn to quit and call it a day."

  "You're the only part of my human past that I still care to remember," said Carrion. "We're still bound together, by all the things we did and shouldn't have done. What do you want this time, John?"

  Silence indicated the viewscreen showing Lewis and his companions cutting their way through a stubborn group of marines. More troops were coming up on them from behind, but Lewis hadn't seen them yet.

  "You have to help them, Sean. This new Deathstalker and his ragbag friends are perhaps the last hope the Empire's got. The Terror is come at last, and all Humanity is threatened with extinction."

  "You say that like it's a bad thing," said Carrion, but his heart wasn't in it.

  Silence considered the viewscreens. "Imperial troops on Unseeli again. Marines and war machines and gravity barges. Blasted open clearings and broken trees, and good people threatened with death for no good reason. We can't let this happen again, Sean. You heard the Durandal's secret orders. The Empire didn't commit this kind of firepower here just to take care of a few traitors. The new regime is using Unseeli as a testing ground. Somewhere to try out their new shock troops and their new battle plans. They must be stopped. They won't be happy until all the Ashrai are dead and gone and Unseeli is an Empire world again. A symbol of the new order. You have to help the Deathstalker, while you still can. The Ashrai can defend their world, but the Deathstalker is the key to defeating the Durandal, and all the bad things that are coming. A Deathstalker always is. You can't let him die here."

  Carrion considered the viewscreen before him. When he looked round again, he was alone in the lobby.

  Lewis leaned heavily against the thick bole of a golden tree, panting for breath. His sword hung down from his hand, too heavy to lift for the moment. Blood dripped from his dented and scored armor, some of it his own. He looked around him, but all the troops he could see were dead. He could hear more of them crashing back and forth in the trees and shouting incoherently to each other, but most seemed to be moving away. Jesamine was sitting on the ground beside him, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Lewis was worried about her. She wasn't built for this.

  Brett and Rose were sitting together, not far away. Rose had a cloth in her hand, and was using it to wipe the blood off Brett's face with slow, careful movements, as though she'd never done anything like that before. Brett sat very still, and let her.

  A little farther away, Saturday was eating something with great enjoyment. None of the others looked at him.

  Lewis looked up at the sky, where the Ashrai were still circling. "Damn them," he said quickly. "We're here for them too. Why won't they help? Don't they know the Terror will come for them too, if we can't stop it? We cant die here, not so early in our quest…"

  "They know," said Jesamine. "They just don't care. All they care about is killing humans, continuing their war, which should have ended centuries ago."

  "If only I could have made Carrion listen…" said Lewis.

  "Oh, hell," said Jesamine, clambering unsteadily to her feet. "I may not be much of a fighter, but if there's one thing I've always been able to do, it's make people listen."

  She glared up into the sky at the soaring Ashrai, took a deep breath, opened her mouth, and sang. On some level, she could still hear the song of the trees and the Ashrai, the song of Unseeli, and now she answered it with a song of her own, a harmony and a counterpoint; the song of Humanity. Her voice rang out clear as any bell, cutting effortlessly across the clamor of the surrounding troops. She sang, her voice proud and true, with words and melodies from a dozen songs—from all the operas she'd ever sung in her long career— and it seemed like the whole world stopped to listen to her.

  And the Ashrai sang back to her, their voices joining and combining, forming a glorious whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Jesamine Flowers sang, and the Ashrai answered, and the two songs joined to become one. Jesamine stopped singing, and so did the Ashrai. And in that echoing silence, the Ashrai dropped out of the glowing sky and fell upon the Imperial troopers surrounding Lewis and his people. The marines cried out in shock and horror as the Ashrai came sweeping between the towering trees with almost supernatural grace, and were upon them before they could even aim their weapons. Everywhere in the metallic forest, marines screamed and died, and Jesamine watched, with tears in her eyes, the ugly results of such a beautiful song.

  Carrion watched it all on his viewscreens, and felt a great weight lift from his heart as the decision was made for him. He should have remembered that Deathstalkers always got their own way, eventually. Ah, well, he murmured, and walked out of Base Thirteen. He lifted his feet from the ground and flew up through the diffused light, punching through the heavy cloud layer and on out into space. He didn't feel the cold and he didn't need to breathe, and energy crackled up and down the length of his power lance, that ancient banned weapon. He concentrated and his speed increased, until the first starcruiser loomed swiftly up before him. Carrion smashed through the ship's force shields like they weren't even there, and then hammered his way through the many layers of steel in under a second before bursting out the hull on the other side. He swung around and hit the ship again, targeting the engines this time, punching holes through the steel decks with joyous ease. Explosions rocked the starcruiser as he hung a way off in space, and he smiled in the cold and the dark as the Heracles slowly tore itself apart, the long steel ship blossoming into bright actinic flames, and the screams of the dying went unheard in the vacuum of space. Carrion turned his back on the stricken ship as it began its slow descent from orbit, falling slowly but inevitably to its death.

  The other starcruisers were slowly turning and maneuvering to face Carrion as he flew effortlessly towards them. They opened up with every gun they had, the disrupter cannon operated by the very best tracking systems, releasing enough destructive energies to take out a dozen ships, let alone one man, unarmed and unprotected. But he was Carrion, and he had been through the Madness Maze, and he had faced the Recreated. He was human and Ashrai and so much more. And in the end, nothing was left of the five starcruisers but a few radioactive shells, tumbling slowly end over end into the fiery grasp of Unseeli's welcoming atmosphere.

  Carrion hung alone in space, looking down on his adopted world, and thought of many things.

  John Silence walked unhurriedly through the shimmering metal forest, and where he looked, war machines exploded. He looked up, and where his gaze fell upon them, gravity barges malfunctioned and fell out of the sky, impaling themselves on the tops and branches of the metal trees, or falling in flames to the gray ground below. Violent explosions sounded all through the forest as the Imperial advance slowed and stopped. Troops ran screaming rather than face him, only to meet the Ashrai, deadly and unstoppable, taking back their world from those who would despoil it. They generated localized psistorms wherever they went, altering probabilities so that weapons malfunctioned and accidents happened and men fell dead from strokes and embolisms and heart attacks. Finn's people had no espers to protect them, only a handful of easily overwhelmed esp-blockers.

  And of course, there was Lewis Deathstalker and Jesamine Flowers, Rose Constantine and Brett Random, and the reptiloid Saturday, and no man could stand against them either.

  Finn Durandal sent an army to Unseeli. Religious fanatics, Pure Humanity t
o a man, trained soldiers. And in the end, they never stood a chance, because the Ashrai weren't interested in accepting surrender either. Men had come to Unseeli with death on their minds, and that was what they found.

  Lewis Deathstalker and his companions finally returned to the clearing in which they'd left the Hereward. It seemed very still and quiet. You'd never know a terrible war had been fought only a short distance away. Lewis and Jesamine nodded to Rose and Brett, and then they all looked in disgust at Saturday as he gnawed on what was very obviously the remains of a human leg. The reptiloid realized they were all glaring at him, and generously offered to share his meal with the others. He was honestly puzzled when they all loudly declined. He shrugged, and casually cracked open the long bone to get at the marrow. Lewis looked away, desperate for something else to concentrate on. All around, there were loud creakings and groanings as the damaged metal trees slowly regenerated, repairing the harm done to them. Soon there would be no traces left to show that Humanity had ever come to Unseeli. Lewis thought he could live with that.

  Jesamine made her way slowly over to the Hereward's airlock, and then leaned against the hatch, pressing her hot, flushed face against the cold metal. She was shaking with shock and reaction to all she'd been through. Not just from the strain of singing with the Ashrai, though her head still swam and her throat was raw with pain, but also from the sheer horror of the fighting she'd witnessed and been a reluctant part of. She'd thought she'd seen the rough side of life before, when she was starting out; seen men kill each other in the cheap clubs and bars she'd played at the start of her career. But this was war, and war was different. All the blood and suffering, the desperate screams of the dying, the knowledge that you could die at any moment if you were slow or stupid or just unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Amid the noise and the bedlam and the sudden stench of freshly spilled guts, she had killed because she had to, and she had no doubts about what she'd done. She had nothing but contempt for the fanatics who made up the Church Militant and Pure Humanity. But still she shook and shuddered and bit her lip to keep from crying out. She didn't know if she could do it again… not even for Lewis and his cause.

  Lewis finally noticed her and came quickly over to put a comforting arm around her. She turned and buried her face in his chest, and took what comfort she could from him.

  Not too far away, Brett was standing hunched over, his arms wrapped tightly around his aching stomach. He'd already vomited till he dry heaved, and it hadn't helped. He was a con man, not a fighter. A thief, not a killer. He didn't want anyone to die, least of all himself. And yet he remembered walking through the trees, making men kill each other and themselves, as though he'd been a whole other person then. Rose stood patiently beside him, not understanding, but keeping him company.

  "It's over," she said. "We won. You fought well enough. You should be proud."

  "I never wanted this," he said thickly. "This isn't me. This isn't what I do. I want to go home."

  "Things change," said Rose. "After a while, it won't bother you at all."

  "That's what scares me," said Brett.

  Saturday watched them all, and said nothing.

  Carrion came walking out of the forest with another man at his side, and both sides were surprised to find the other knew the newcomer.

  "You told me John Silence was dead," Carrion said reproachfully.

  "That's because we knew him as Samuel Chevron," Lewis said finally, when he could get his breath back. "I knew you had to be someone important from the age of heroes, but I had no idea… are you really him? Captain John Silence of the Dauntless!"

  "I was once. It was a long time ago."

  "That's how you were able to do all those amazing things in Traitor's Hall!" said Jesamine, her eyes almost painfully wide. "Why… why didn't you tell us? Why did you let everyone think you were dead? And why didn't anyone recognize Samuel Chevron was really one of the great legends of our time?"

  "People see what I want them to see, when they look at me," said Silence.

  "I've taken care of all five starcruisers," said Carrion, smiling at the open awe in the faces of Lewis and Jesamine and Brett. Rose just watched silently. "A few lifeboats got away, to tell what happened here. I don't think the Empire will be coming back. I trust the excitement is now over, and I can get back to my life?"

  "We were hoping you might come with us, Sir Carrion," Lewis said diffidently. "To search for the blessed Owen. We have so much to do…"

  "No," said Carrion. "Not even for a Deathstalker. Not even for you, John."

  Lewis turned to Silence, but he shook his head too. "I go where I'm needed. You don't need me, Deathstalker."

  "Why haven't you revealed yourself before this?" said Jesamine, almost angrily. "Why did you allow Finn and his people to come to power? Why didn't you stop all the terrible things that have happened?"

  "One man alone can't save the Empire," said Silence. "Even a Deathstalker needs companions."

  "Why didn't you interfere in the fighting here earlier?" said Brett.

  "Because you needed the experience."

  "We could all have been killed!"

  "That's part of what you were learning."

  "What about the Terror?" said Lewis. "With your power…"

  "No," said Silence. "That's your destiny, Deathstalker. Go to Haden. All the answers you seek are there, in the Madness Maze." He turned to look at Carrion. "I have to go, Sean. Tell me: are you happy, now you're an Ashrai?"

  "Yes," said Carrion. "It's all I ever wanted."

  "Good," said Silence. "I'm glad one of us at least got to have a happy ending."

  "They told me you were dead, John."

  "I am," said Silence, and he disappeared.

  Carrion nodded slowly. "Well," he said. "This is a planet of ghosts, after all."

  He turned back into an Ashrai, huge and powerful, spread his membranous wings, and flew back up into the glowing sky to rejoin his people.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BROTHERLY LOVE, AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

  It was dark in the King's private chambers. All the blinds were drawn, and the door was securely locked. And Douglas Campbell, last favored son of a noble line, Speaker to the House of Parliament, and chosen King of Humanity's greatest Empire, sat alone in his opulent chambers, wrapped in a faded old dressing gown and nothing else, unshaven and disheveled, staring at nothing. His once handsome face was slack, his eyes were empty, and what thoughts he had were slow and sullen, of no importance to anyone, not even himself. Someone was knocking at his door, had been knocking for some time now, but he couldn't bring himself to give a damn. They'd give up eventually and go away, leaving him alone, just like everyone else.

  He'd sent them all away, friends and colleagues and servants, driving them from him with harsh words and bitter language. He needed to be alone with his pain, and he had no use anymore for words like duty or responsibility. He had a lot of brooding and second-guessing and feeling sorry for himself to do… and he had just enough dignity left that he didn't want anyone to see him like this. Especially not the servants. For all their smiles and kind words and signed loyalty oaths, there wasn't one he'd trust not to go running off to the media with their story, if the price was right. Once, that would have been unthinkable. But then, a lot of things had been unthinkable, once—before his closest friend had betrayed him with the only woman he'd ever really loved.

  He wasn't sure how long he'd sat alone in the dark, trying not to think or feel or care. He didn't do much anymore. Mostly he just sat in his chair, ate and drank when he remembered, and spent as much time dozing and sleeping as he could, because then he didn't have to remember how his whole life had gone to hell. He hadn't shaved or bathed in ages, and didn't care. He had a bowl of something lukewarm in his lap that he didn't remember preparing. He couldn't remember whether it was supposed to be breakfast or dinner, but now and again he ate some of it with his fingers. It didn't taste of anything much. He was a mess, and he
knew it. Somehow, that seemed fitting.

  The viewscreen before him hadn't been turned on in days. At first, he'd kept it on all the time, for a kind of company. He sat slumped in front of the screen like an acolyte, flicking numbly through the hundreds of news channels, in the hope of finding someone who could explain to him how everything in his life could have gone so terribly wrong so quickly. But all the news channels could do was drive home in merciless detail just how quickly his precious Golden Age was deteriorating into something far darker, by its own perverse will. It seemed like there was no good news anymore. The Church Militant was now the Empire's official religion, in all the ways that mattered. Thousands of fanatics marched down city streets on hundreds of worlds, holding up blazing crosses, loudly proclaiming their vicious faith, and damning all unbelievers. Pure Humanity had also seized the public mood and made it their own, and everywhere hatred was lashing out at anyone or anything that could be declared inhuman. Espers, aliens… and anyone who wasn't Pure Humanity or Church Militant. It was a dangerous time to be a free-thinker. Heretics could be hunted down and butchered in busy streets, and no one would raise a finger to help them.

  The news shows weren't openly biased yet, but the signs were already there, if you knew what to look for—in the words the commentators didn't use, in the language that didn't condemn, in the causes and people who couldn't even get air time anymore. Douglas grew tired, watching it all fall apart. All the sane voices were gone. Most of the politicians were running scared, the old Church had vanished with its gentle Patriarch, and the Paragons had set off on their great quest, to find the missing Owen Deathstalker. So far, there was no sign of the blessed Owen anywhere, and a few Paragons had already returned, abandoning and renouncing the quest as useless.

  There was no news at all of Lewis Deathstalker and his treacherous companions. Douglas couldn't decide whether that was good or bad news. All he knew for sure was that he didn't recognize what his world and his Empire had become. So he turned off the viewscreen and sat alone in the growing gloom, feeling lost and broken and useless.