Deathstalker Coda (55 page)
Authors: Simon R. Green
But what happens if the uber-espers do turn up in person?
someone asked.
someone asked.
Run like fun for the nearest horizon,
Diana said crisply.
It won’t do you any good, but it should take your mind off the horror to come.
Diana said crisply.
It won’t do you any good, but it should take your mind off the horror to come.
You’re such a comfort, Diana.
I know. Aren’t you glad I’m here to tell you these things?
The thrall armies of the uber-espers finally came to the Parade of the Endless by all the roads at once, and marched across the city boundaries laughing and cheering and singing ugly songs. Sometimes they made sounds like animals, or things that had never had a voice before. They poured into the city down a hundred roads, from a hundred dead cities; millions of possessed men and women and even children, run by five terribly powerful minds. They found no victims waiting for them in the outskirts; the people living there had long since abandoned their homes, retreating to the better-defended center of the city. Some had fled out into the surrounding countryside, hoping to avoid the marching armies, but the hovering uber-esper minds picked them out easily, and added them to the horde, and now they marched back into their city with someone else living in their heads. The thralls smashed and burnt the houses they walked past. Just because they could.
Finn pulled his forces back from the city boundaries, in carefully practiced disorder, pretending to fall back in a panic, but actually retreating just slowly enough to keep the thralls pursuing them, towards the ambushes and booby traps Finn had waiting for them. And as the thralls swarmed into the city, the people of the Rookery came storming out. They swiftly made contact with the retreating forces, who were so scared they were actually pleased to see the very rebels they’d been fighting the week before. Most of the clone guards, still wearing their steel masks, just didn’t have the practical experience to deal with fighting on a scale like this, and were glad of expert minds to tell them what to do. They were programmed to follow orders from anyone who gave them with sufficient authority.
The thralls came in, the defending forces stopped retreating and went to meet them, and vicious hand-to-hand fighting filled the city’s streets and squares and open parks. The defenders had swords and axes, guns and grenades. The thralls mostly had improvised weapons, and a vast superiority in numbers. Blood flew and bodies fell, and the tides of battle surged blindly this way and that. Diana Vertue and the Psycho Sluts flew high above it all, hanging on the sky like gaudy birds of prey, casting a protection over the defenders below, so that the thralls couldn’t possess them with eye contact.
The thrall armies, and through them the uber-espers, were thrown and confused at first when their main tactic suddenly no longer worked, and they took a lot of losses before they gathered their wits and urged the thralls on into open combat. They plunged forward with swords and knives and often just their grasping, clawing hands. They were all attack and no defense, because there were always more to replace those who fell. Sometimes just the sheer force of numbers was enough to overwhelm and overrun even the best-prepared defenders. It was clear to the uber-espers that they wouldn’t be claiming any more thralls in the Parade of the Endless until the defenders were defeated, and Diana and her Sluts were brought down. Or until the uber-espers found the courage to leave their bolt-holes and join the attack in person.
They might. They were all in the city, or more properly, under it. And they did so want to pull this famed city down, and make it theirs.
Terrible fighting raged back and forth in the streets, and blood and guts splashed the walls and ran thickly in the gutters, as the bodies piled up on every side. A dozen thralls fell for every defender, but the odds were thousands to one. The thralls kept pouring across the city boundaries, and there were still more on the way. They had no real tactics, only mass movements and the voices in their heads screaming
Kill! Kill!
but there seemed no end to their numbers, and unlike the defenders, they never got tired or careless or afraid. The rebels from the Rookery were spread all over the city, inspiring others through their vicious example, but they couldn’t be everywhere.
Kill! Kill!
but there seemed no end to their numbers, and unlike the defenders, they never got tired or careless or afraid. The rebels from the Rookery were spread all over the city, inspiring others through their vicious example, but they couldn’t be everywhere.
Two armies clashed, bodies fell and did not rise again, and the focus of the fighting moved slowly but inexorably towards the heart of the city, and the Imperial Palace.
And while all this was going on, Douglas Campbell was somewhere else. He and Tel Markham crept through deserted side streets, avoiding the fighting, heading for the Imperial Palace to meet with Emperor Finn, that together they might set a trap for the uber-espers. A trap promising the only bait that might tempt the uber-espers into coming to the palace in person: a King and an Emperor. Both Douglas and Finn had agreed that the only real hope they had of defeating the thralls was to lure the uber-espers out of their hiding places, and face them in person. Only when those five monsters were dead, would the threat really be over.
The meeting should have been just for Douglas and Finn, but Tel Markham insisted on accompanying Douglas to the palace, to watch the King’s back. He, better than anyone else living, had good reason to know just how treacherous the Emperor could be. Douglas didn’t object. Finn had been very clear in his instructions that Douglas should come alone, but Douglas wasn’t about to start taking orders from Finn Durandal.
Of course, there was always the chance that Tel intended to betray Douglas to Finn, for labyrinthine reasons of his own, but Douglas didn’t think so. Hell hath no fury like an intriguer scorned.
The two of them walked together through a deserted palace. All the guards and most of the servants were out in the city fighting, and the rest were hiding. The living had abandoned the dark and bloody corridors to the dead. They were everywhere now, even more than on Douglas’s last visit. Rotting bodies hung from nooses, or steel garottes, and severed heads stood in rows on wooden stakes. In some places the old carpeting was so thickly and darkly stained with blood that the patterns had disappeared. The air was thick and hot and still, and rank with foulness. Douglas strode quickly along, not allowing himself to be distracted, while Tel scowled and muttered darkly under his breath. It took a long time to reach the court, where Finn Durandal sat in state on his throne, smiling down on his visitors from the raised dais. He nodded to Douglas, and to Tel.
“So, here we are again. Well, well. I knew you’d bring someone, Douglas. So I thought I’d have a little company too.”
He indicated the dead man swinging slowly from a rope beside his throne. Mr. Sylvester hadn’t been dead long. His eyes bulged from his dark congested face, and a purple tongue protruded from his mouth. His great body twisted slowly back and forth, while the rope creaked loudly. Finn smiled fondly, and gave the body a gentle push with one hand to keep it moving.
“A peace offering, Douglas,” he said lightly. “To show my sincerity. How sorry I am for all the nasty things he did, on my behalf. And he had outlived his usefulness, after all. I had a hell of a job getting him up there. Kicking and struggling and carrying on. And it wasn’t easy to find a rope that would take his weight. The first two snapped. The things I do for you, Douglas, and you never appreciate them. But then, that’s what started all this, wasn’t it?”
“What happened to the two other thrones?” said Douglas. “Tradition always had two more thrones, one for the Queen and one for the blessed Owen on his return.”
“Oh, I got rid of them long ago,” said Finn. “Thou shalt have no other gods but me, and all that. Now, I was going to do something. What was it? Oh, yes.”
The Emperor drew a concealed disrupter from his tall boot and shot Tel Markham in the chest. Tel cried out briefly as the impact threw him backward, but he was dead before he hit the floor, the front of his grubby tunic blackened and smouldering. Douglas already had his gun in his hand, but the Emperor just smiled, and put his gun away again.
“Relax, Douglas. Show’s over. It had to be done; he betrayed me. And there’s some shit I just won’t put up with. Now it’s just the two of us, as it was always meant to be. Tel didn’t belong here, any more than Mr. Sylvester. They were only ever minor players in our drama. Are you wearing your esp-blocker?”
“Of course,” said Douglas, slowly putting his gun away. He deliberately didn’t look at the dead Tel Markham. “The most heavy-duty esp-blocker Diana Vertue could put together. And there’s still no guarantee it will work if the uber-espers do show up in person.”
“Oh, you know they will,” Finn said easily. “How could they not? A chance to possess the two leaders of the city defenses, the two men who’ve done so much to defy them? They won’t be able to resist us. I’m quite looking forward to seeing them again. They really are spectacularly ugly.”
Douglas slowly ascended the dais steps to stand beside Finn’s throne. He looked out over the empty court. For a moment, the two men were silent, remembering.
“Just like old times, eh?” Finn said finally.
“Not really, no,” said Douglas.
“We had some good times here,” said Finn, almost reproachfully.
“That was a long time ago, when we were very different people.”
“You might have been different,” said Finn. “I’ve always been just me. Though perhaps I’m a little more open about it these days. Do you like what I’ve done with the palace?”
“I hate it,” said Douglas, not looking at Finn.
“You never did have any taste. I’ve done wonders with the place. A real makeover.”
“It is very you. But don’t worry. Once I’ve taken it back, I’ll have cleaners working in shifts for weeks. No one will know you were ever here.”
There was another long silence. So many unspoken words burned between them, of betrayal and murder and crimes beyond counting, but somehow that wasn’t what they wanted to talk about. They had been friends, once.
“When this is all over,” Douglas said slowly, “you could surrender to me. I can guarantee a life sentence in prison, rather than execution. For old times’ sake.”
“Prison would be death, to me,” said Finn. “You could surrender to me, but I wouldn’t advise it. I have all kinds of appalling things planned for you, if we both survive this. If . . . I do try to be optimistic, but it isn’t easy. Things never go the way you expect, do they?”
“No,” said Douglas. “They don’t.”
“So,” said Finn. “You’re the King of Thieves now. I’m Emperor. You never did think big enough.”
“I was granted my title by popular acclaim. You stole yours.”
“Best way,” Finn said cheerfully.
Douglas turned and looked at him. “How could you, Finn? How could you do all the things you’ve done? All the terrible things . . .”
“It was easy,” said Finn. “I just stopped pretending I cared. That’s always been your weakness, Douglas. You do things for others; I do them for myself.”
“No. That’s my strength. You never did understand that. It’s why my people stand and fight, and yours run away.”
“But I run an Empire, while you only have part of a city. It’s a vision thing, Douglas.”
“How could I have been so wrong about you? We were friends, partners, comrades in arms for so many years . . . I thought I knew you.”
“A lot of people have made that mistake,” said Finn Durandal.
And that was when the uber-espers appeared, all at once, teleporting into the open space of the abandoned court, dropping into reality like so many rotten fruit. They all came at once, because none of them trusted any of the others to come alone. The temperature in the great hall plummeted as the materialization sucked all the heat out of the surrounding air. Douglas and Finn both shuddered involuntarily, not entirely from the cold. Finn rose up off his Throne, gun in hand, and Douglas stood at his side, gun at the ready.
Psionic energies discharged around the uber-espers in coruscating lightning forks, and crawled along the walls like bright actinic ivy. The uber-espers’ presence hammered on the air, like a corpse at a wedding, like bad news in a maternity ward, like the cancer growth your doctor shows you on the scan. Five old and terrible monsters, come to Court at last, to claim it for themselves.
The Gray Train. Blue Hellfire. Screaming Silence. The Spider Harps. The Shatter Freak.
Blue Hellfire was tall and slender and the most visibly human, wrapped in diaphanous silks over blue-white flesh beneath. Her short spiky hair was packed with ice, and hoarfrost made whorled patterns on her corpse-pale face. Her eyes and lips were the pale blue of hypothermia. She looked like someone who had been buried in the permafrost for centuries, and only recently dug up. She smiled terribly on the King and Emperor, sucking all the remaining heat out of the air around her. She stepped slowly forward, one pace at a time, inexorable as a glacier. Her clothes made sounds like cracking ice as she moved, and she left a trail of burning footprints behind her.
The Gray Train no longer had a body, as such. He only existed as an individual identity through an ongoing concentrated effort of will. He manifested as a cloud of gray flakes that held a more or less human form, composed of dust and detritus gathered from his surroundings. He was only a memory of what he used to be, and if his concentration ever slipped, he wouldn’t even be that. But there was still a power in him, fueled by his implacable will. Reality itself shivered where he walked, subject to his fleeting fancies. The world was whatever he believed it was, wherever he was.
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