Deathstalker

  Deathstalker

  Destiny

  Simon R. Green

  CONTENT

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE Blood Debt

  CHAPTER TWO Old Truths Come Home to Roost

  CHAPTER THREE Zero Zero

  CHAPTER FOUR From the Undermind to the Oversoul

  CHAPTER FIVE Even Legends Die

  CHAPTER SIX Royal Wedding

  CHAPTER SEVEN The Lost Deathstalker

  PROLOGUE

  Owen Deathstalker: "I've always known I've been living on borrowed time."

  Hazel d'Ark: "I never said I loved you, Owen."

  Jack Randon: "Politicians. They're all dirty. Hang them all."

  Ruby Journey: "Peace was just a dream."

  Prophecy of a young esper: "I see you, Deathstalker. Destiny has you in its clutches, struggle how you may. You will tumble an Empire, see the end of everything you ever believed in, and you'll do it all for a love you'll never know. And when it's over, you'll die alone, far from friends and succour."

  This is the end of the story. And it starts now.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Blood Debt

  It was still raining on Lachrymae Christi. The tears of God. Owen Deathstalker hadn't shed a single tear since the Blood Runners abducted Hazel d'Ark. To cry would be to give in to his fear and desperation, and he couldn't afford to be weak. He had to be strong, ready to seize any chance that might get him off this damned planet and onto Hazel's trail. He had to be strong, for her. So he put a lid on his despair, and clamped it down hard with never-ending work, and never once allowed himself to entertain the possibility that Hazel d'Ark might already be dead.

  It had been two weeks since Hazel was taken, and Owen had hardly slept since. He sat exhausted on the bare ground of the Mission compound, head hanging forward, sweat dripping off his face. He'd been working hard since first light, distracting himself with the simple everyday problems of rebuilding the devastated Mission, but he was only human, these days, and his body would only take so much punishment before forcing him to rest. And then he would sit, and brood, and squeeze his eyes shut against the visions his mind conjured up of what the Blood Runners might be doing to Hazel, until he couldn't stand it anymore, and would dive back into the distraction of work, whether he was ready or not.

  A leper approached him hesitantly, anonymous in the usual gray cloak and pulled-forward hood. He offered Owen a cup of wine, in a gray gloved hand that only shook a little. Owen accepted it with a nod, and the leper backed quickly away, bowing respectfully. The Mission's surviving lepers had seen Owen blow away an army of attacking Grendels, like leaves in a scorching breeze, all by the power of his mind. They had seen him stand against overwhelming forces, and refuse to retreat. He was their savior, and they were all very much in awe of him.

  They didn't know he was only human now. They didn't know he'd burned out all his Maze-given powers, to save them.

  "You've got to slow down, Owen," Oz murmured softly in his ear. The AI sounded distinctly worried. "You can't keep pushing yourself like this. You're killing yourself."

  "The work has to be done," said Owen, subvocalizing so those still working around him wouldn't hear. "The Hadenmen and the Grendels knocked the shit out of this place. Half the wall's down, most of the buildings are leaning on each other for support, and the roofs leaking in a hundred places. The lepers can't do it on their own. A lot of them belong in sickbeds anyway."

  "That's not why you're doing it," said Oz. "You're not fooling anyone, you know. All this hard work and toil, working till you drop; it's not for them, for the Mission. You're punishing yourself, for letting the Blood Runners take Hazel."

  "I wasn't there, when she needed me," said Owen, staring at the ground between his feet. "If I had been, maybe I could have done… something…"

  "You'd lost your powers. You were just a man. There was nothing you could have done."

  "Work is good," said Owen. "Simple problems, with simple solutions. It keeps me from thinking, from remembering. If I stop to think and remember, I'll go mad."

  "Owen…"

  "They've had her two weeks now. Fourteen days and nights, in the Obeah Systems, on the other side of the Empire, to torture and torment her as it pleases them. And I'm trapped here, with no powers, and not even a hope of a ship to get me offplanet so I can go after her. They could have done a lot, in fourteen days and nights."

  When the Blood Runners first took Hazel, Owen did go crazy, for a while. He wouldn't eat or sleep for days, stalking blindly round the ruined Mission as the terrorized lepers scattered to get out of his way. He screamed and ranted and called Hazel's name, making horrible threats and howling like an animal in pain. In the end, he grew weak enough that Sister Marion was able to wrestle him to the ground and hold him down, while Mother Beatrice injected him with industrial-strength sedatives. His dreams then were vague, horrible things, and when he woke up, they'd strapped him to a bed in the Mission infirmary.

  He'd worn out his voice with screaming and ranting, but he still cursed them all in a harsh, rasping voice, while Moon sat quietly at his side, giving what comfort he could. It was some time before Owen got control of himself again, exhausted physically and emotionally. But he never cried. Mother Beatrice came to see him often, and offered him the comfort of her God, but he wouldn't take it. There was no room in his cold heart now for anything but rescue or revenge.

  When they finally let him up again, he spent the best part of a day in the Mission comm center, calling for a ship to come and pick him up. Any ship. He used every bit of authority he had, pulled every string, called in every favor he could think of, threatened and pleaded and bribed, and none of it did any good. There was a war on. Actually, there were several wars, going on simultaneously. The Empire was under attack by the Hadenmen, Shub, Grendels, the insect aliens, and the threat of the Recreated. Owen just wasn't important enough anymore to be worth diverting a precious ship to far-off Lachrymae Christi. He'd just have to wait.

  Owen would have wrecked the whole damned comm center, if Mother Beatrice hadn't been there, her eyes full of compassion. So instead, he stalked out and buried himself in the rebuilding of the Mission. It helped that there was a lot that needed doing. He made himself eat and drink at regular intervals, because if he didn't Mother Beatrice or Sister Marion stood over him till he did. When it grew too dark to work, he lay down on his bed and pretended to sleep, waiting with empty heart for it to be light again.

  The rebuilding was slow and hard work now that his powers were gone, burned out in his last stand against the Grendels. He was no stronger or faster than any other man now, and all his other abilities were lost to him, like the words of an old song he could no longer quite recall. Sometimes, in the long endless hours of the night, it seemed to him that something was stirring deep within him, but it never surfaced, and when morning finally came, it found him still just a man.

  So he spent his days working alongside the more able-bodied lepers, raising the high wall again segment by segment, and in its way the work comforted him, working as a man among men again, a part of Humanity instead of someone thrust outside it. To be just a part of a group, instead of its leader. It felt good to lose himself in mindless, repetitious work, and to have achieved something definite by the end of the day. But most of the real work was coming to an end. A few more days, and the Mission would be complete again, and all that would be left was scrabbling about on the sloping roof fixing leaks, and other small stuff. Owen didn't know what he'd do then.

  He drank the wine the leper had brought him, too tired even to grimace at the bitter taste. They'd been putting strychnine in it again, to give it a bit more bite.

  "She could be anywhere," he said quietly, knowing he was tormenting himself, but unabl
e to stop. "Anywhere in the Obeah Systems. I've never been there. Don't know anyone who has. I don't even know which planet they've got her on. They could be doing anything to her. Everyone knows the Blood Runners' reputation. They've made an art of suffering and a science of slaughter. She could be dying, right now, and there's nothing the great and almighty Owen Deathstalker can do to save her."

  "This isn't doing you any good, Owen," said Oz. "She's dead. She must be, by now. Grieve, and let her go—"

  "I can't."

  "Then be patient. A ship will come, eventually."

  "I love her, Oz. I would have died, to save her from them."

  "Of course you would have."

  "Oh, God…"

  "Hush, Owen. Hush."

  Sudden screams jerked Owen's head up, and he was up and on his feet in a moment, casting the wine cup aside, as he saw one section of the newly erected wall break free from its ties and lean ponderously forward, over the dozen or so lepers beneath it. The segment weighed several tons, and the safety ropes that should have stopped or slowed its fall were snapping one after the other, like a series of firecrackers. The lepers turned to run, but it was obvious they weren't going to make it out from under the wall before the segment came crashing down like a hammer.

  Owen subvocalized his old code word boost, and new strength and speed burned in his muscles as he raced toward the falling wall. Everything else seemed to be moving in slow motion as the gengineered gift of the Deathstalker Clan kicked in, making Owen briefly superhuman again. He reached the falling wall in seconds, and grasped the last intact safety rope with both hands. His fingers closed like steel clamps around the thick cable and held it firmly as it snapped taut. The lepers ran slowly past Owen as he held the rope, snarling furiously as the rough hemp tore slowly through his grasp, ripping away the flesh of his palms and fingers. Blood ran down his wrists. And then the rope snapped, like all the others.

  Owen could have jumped back and saved himself. Most of the lepers were out. But some were still caught in the wall's growing shadow. Owen looked around and spotted a half tree-trunk lying on its side, waiting to be trimmed into planks. It had to weigh at least half a ton, but Owen lifted it off the ground with one explosive grunt, swung it around and moved steadily forward to block the end against the falling wall segment. The weight hit the trunk hard, splitting it halfway down its length, but the improvised wedge held, and the wall segment stopped. Its weight pressed on, driving the tree trunk into the soft earth of the compound floor, and the split lengthened inch by inch. Owen threw his arms around the tree trunk and hugged it to him, holding it together despite all the weight of the wall could do. His arms shrieked with pain, and he was fighting for breath, but still he held the wedge together.

  Sweat poured down his face again. His back was ablaze with the pain of abused muscles. He risked a look over his shoulder, and saw that the last few lepers were almost clear. He only had to hang on for a few more seconds. The splitting wood twisted in his grip like a live thing, spiteful and resentful, the rough bark scraping and tearing his skin. And then Moon called to him that the last of the lepers were clear, and Owen let go the tree trunk and ran for his life. The trunk split in half in a second, and the wall segment came down like the crack of doom, missing Owen's departing heels by inches.

  He staggered on a few more steps and then sat down suddenly, all his strength and his breath going out of him as he shut down the boost. Time crashed back to normal about him, and suddenly lepers were running at him from all directions, cheering his last-minute rescue. The Hadenman Moon was quickly there at Owen's side to protect him from being overwhelmed, but for a moment it seemed hands were coming at him from everywhere at once, clapping him on the back or trying to shake his hand. He smiled and nodded, and tried to look as though it had been nothing. They didn't know he wasn't a superhuman anymore. No one did for sure, except Moon, who still had all his powers.

  Eventually the lepers grew tired of telling Owen how great he was, and they drifted back to work again. A squad of the hardier workers set about raising the collapsed wall segment back into place again, and hammered long nails in from every angle to make sure the bloody thing stayed put this time. Moon sat down beside Owen.

  "You know, I could have got there in time. And my augmented muscles were far better suited to supporting such a weight."

  "But you didn't get there. Besides, I like to feel useful."

  "How are your hands and arms?"

  Owen carefully didn't look at them. "They hurt like hell, but they're already healing. Part of the boost's benefits."

  "You can't keep pretending you're still superhuman, Owen. Boost can only do so much. And you know what the aftereffects do to you."

  "I can't just stand by, Tobias. I never could."

  "Even if it kills you?"

  "Don't you have some work to do, Moon?"

  "Are you going to be all right?"

  "Go away, Tobias. Please."

  The Hadenman nodded once, rose smoothly to his feet, and walked unhurriedly away. Owen sighed, slowly. No one must know how far he'd fallen, from what he was. He couldn't have coped with pity, on top of everything else. And Owen Deathstalker had made a great many enemies in his time. He couldn't afford word to get out that he was… vulnerable.

  "Moon's right, you know," said Oz.

  "And you can shut up too."

  "Watch your temper. And your language. Saint Bea's coming over."

  Owen raised his aching head, and his heart sank just a little more as he saw Mother Superior Beatrice bearing down on him, her simple nun's robes flapping about her like a ship under full sail. Saint Bea meant well, she always did, but he was in no mood for a lecture, however compassionate. He started to get up, but Mother Beatrice waved him back with an imperious gesture, and Owen's muscles obeyed before he realized what he was doing. Saint Bea had that effect on people. She gathered up her robes and sat down beside him, and then surprised Owen by not immediately tearing into him. Instead, she sat quietly beside him for a while, looking at nothing in particular, humming something vague and wistful half under her breath. Owen found himself relaxing a little, in spite of himself.

  "You know," she said finally, "you really do look like shit, Deathstalker. I spend my days nursing the sick and the dying, and I know shit when I see it. Your weight's way down, and your face shows more bone than anything else. And your eyes are so deep set they look like piss holes in the snow. I'm worried about you, Owen. There are dying men here who look better than you."

  Owen smiled slightly. "Don't hold back, Bea. Tell me what you really think."

  Mother Beatrice shook her head slowly. "You're like a child, Owen; you know that? You don't hear a damned thing you don't want to. Still, you did look really impressive just then. Thanks for being the hero, one more time. Now why not take a few hours off? Get some rest."

  "I can't rest," said Owen.

  "Do you sleep, at all?"

  "Sometimes. I have bad dreams."

  "I could give you something to make you sleep."

  "I have bad dreams."

  Mother Beatrice changed tack. "I have some good news for you, at last. The comm center just reported contact with an Imperial courier ship on its way here. They commandeered our Church supply ship, just to get to you. Somebody out there still believes in you. Try and hold yourself together till they arrive. I don't want this Mission to be remembered as the place where the great Owen Deathstalker moped himself to death."

  Owen smiled briefly. "I promise. I've been waiting for a ship."

  "Hazel may already be dead," Mother Beatrice said quietly. "You have to consider the possibility, Owen."

  "No I don't."

  "Even if you find where the Blood Runners took her, there may be nothing left for you to do."

  "There's always revenge," said Owen.

  Something in his voice made Saint Bea shiver despite herself. She nodded briefly, got to her feet with a grunt, and walked away. There were some things even a saint had n
o answers for. Owen watched her go, and behind his composed features his mind was churning. A courier ship meant a message from Parliament. They must need him for something urgent. Something too difficult or too dangerous for anyone else. But once he was on a ship, and safely offplanet, he was heading straight for the Obeah Systems, and to hell with whatever Parliament wanted. His mental abilities were gone, including his link with Hazel, but he still knew where to go to find the Obeah Systems. Once before, he'd reached out across uncountable space, to mentally locate and kill the Blood Runner called Scour, and he still remembered where his mind had gone. He only had to concentrate and he could feel the path to the Blood Runner homeworld stretching away before him, calling him on. All he needed was a ship. If Hazel was still alive, he would rescue her, and he would make the Blood Runners pay in blood and fire for taking her. And if she was dead…

  He would set the whole damned Obeah Systems afire, to blaze forever in the dark as Hazel's funeral pyre.

  Outside the Mission, the scarlet and crimson jungle flourished. Black-barked trees rose up from a sea of constantly moving vegetation, all of it blushing various shades of red, from shining purples to disturbingly organic pinks. The jungle on Lachrymae Christi was more than usually alive, and varyingly sentient, and spent most of its time warring on itself (except in the rutting season), but all the barbs and thorns drew back as Tobias Moon walked among them. He was their one true beloved and friend, the only one in the Mission who could make mental contact with the single great consciousness of the whole planet's ecosystem: the Red Brain. Which would have been enough to make practically anyone somewhat big-headed; but Moon was a Hadenman, and a survivor of the Madness Maze, and so he took it in his stride. If he thought about it at all, he thought of himself as a gardener, on a somewhat larger than usual scale.

  At the moment, he was overseeing the felling of trees, to provide much needed lumber for the Mission repairs. The Red Brain had given the human community permission to take what was needed, and did what it could to make the job easier by pulling back the more dangerous and obstructive vegetation in the area. Moon oversaw as much of the felling as possible, just in case of misunderstandings, but so far everything was going smoothly. He consulted with the Red Brain, gave the orders on where the trees were to be taken from, and Sister Marion stalked stiff-leggedly back and forth, making sure his instructions were followed to the letter. No one argued with Sister Marion. A Sister of Glory, a warrior nun, and a complete bloody psychopath, her stick-thin figure was seemingly everywhere at once. Striding about in her long black dress of tatters and emerald evening gloves, she made a formidable figure, and she knew it. Her face was hidden under stark white makeup, with rouged cheeks and emerald lips, and she topped it all off with a tall black witch's hat, complete with flapping purple streamers. Let a leper shirk his work, or try to sneak off for a quiet sit-down and a crafty smoke, and within seconds Sister Marion's harsh voice would be blaring right in his ear, driving him back to work with terrible oaths and blasphemies. Somehow they sounded so much more convincing when they came from a nun.