Deathstalker (14 page)

SummerIsle grunted once, and then coughed. Bright bubbling blood spilled from his mouth, and the strength went out of him. His sword fell, and Kid Death ran him through with a short, brutal motion. SummerIsle sank to his knees, his blood spattering the surface of the water. Kid Death pulled free his sword, sheathed it, and then bent over his grandfather, their faces close together.

“You knew that trick,” the young man said quietly. “You taught it to me. You knew it was coming, and you did nothing to stop me. Why?”

“Because I have no wish to live on … in the kind of Empire Lionstone is building.” The old man paused to spit out a thick gobbet of blood. “And because you … are the last of the SummerIsle line. If I’d killed you … the line would have ended with me. Can’t have that. You’ll be the SummerIsle now, boy. Maybe you’ll make a better job of it than I did.”

His head dropped slowly forward, as though he was bowing to his grandson, and then he fell forward into the muddy waters and lay still in a widening pool of his own blood. And Kit, Lord SummerIsle, straightened up, shrugged briefly and turned away.

“I have my own name, old man, the name I earned. And I like it better than anything you ever gave me.”

He drew his bloody sword and saluted Lionstone with it, and she bowed regally in return.

“Don’t go too far, Lord SummerIsle. I may have need of your services again. There is still another traitor who must be dealt with.”

Kid Death took a relaxed stance beside the throne, pushing the Empress’ esper out of the way, and set about cleaning the blood from his blade with a piece of rag. In the forefront of the crowd, the Campbell watched guards drag SummerIsle’s body away and said nothing at all. Lionstone nodded to her maid again, and once more she rose up and clapped her hands twice. Two guards appeared from the mists behind the throne, pushing a large transparent sphere ahead of them. It hovered at waist height, kept clear of the
foul waters by its antigrav field. Within the sphere, a man sat slumped, his head hanging down from exhaustion. He looked to be in his mid-forties, with a heavyset face and figure. His long golden robes might have been imposing once, but they were tattered and soiled now, mostly with his own blood and vomit. He wore no chains, but the sphere held him as securely as any cage. A quiet murmur, quickly stilled, ran through the court as those at the front recognized the new prisoner and sent his name back through the crowd. The guards brought the sphere to a halt before the throne so that Lionstone could look upon her new victim. Her voice rang sweet and mocking on the quiet.

“My Lords, Ladies and gentle friends, allow us to present to you Judge Nicholas Wesley. Once, he presided over the highest court in our Empire, his name a synonym for law and justice. We thought that, of all our subjects, we could trust him implicitly. We were wrong. He thought his word was law, but there’s only one law in the Empire, and that is ours. And having forgotten his duty, he threw away his honor by associating with quite the wrong sort of people. Tell us, Judge; how long have you been a supporter of the clone underground?”

The packed court was deathly silent as it waited for the Judge’s answer. If ever a man in the Empire had been trusted and admired, even revered, it was Judge Wesley. His judgments were legends of reason and honesty, his few books required reading. And now he sat slumped in a stasis sphere, bloodied and humbled, and perhaps there was no justice in the Empire anymore. He looked up slowly, as though even as simple a matter as that took much out of him. Somewhere along the line, he’d suffered a severe beating. One swollen eye was entirely closed, and dried blood crusted his split lips. But even though he had fallen so very far, there was still a dignity about him, and when he finally spoke, his voice was calm and measured.

“I served you for thirty-eight years, Lionstone. I gave justice to all who came before me. Or that is what I told myself. It is my shame that it took me so long to see the evil in you and your laws. My life had become a mockery of everything I thought I believed in. But finally I saw the truth, and I will not look away now, even if the light is painfully bright. A simple truth undid me: that clones are people, too.”

“Not unless we say they are,” said the Empress. “You
haven’t answered our question, Judge. How long have we nursed a traitor to our bosom?”

The Judge met her gaze unblinkingly and said nothing. The Empress smiled.

“Do you understand the nature of the sphere that imprisons you, traitor? It’s a stasis field. Within that sphere, time does as we command. We can speed it up or slow it down. A year can pass in a second, or a second can last a year. You could lose a decade in the blink of an eye, live out your whole life in the time it takes you to answer our questions. Unless you choose to be reasonable. Give us the names of the scum you dealt with, and where they may be found, and you shall go free. We give our word as Empress.”

The Judge smiled suddenly, and fresh blood ran down his chin as his lips split open again. “Your word is worthless, Lionstone. Truth and honor are not in you. I have nothing to say.”

The Empress sat back in her throne and gestured sharply to one of the guards by the sphere. He made a small adjustment to the control on his wrist, and the Judge grunted loudly as though someone had hit him. His hair grew longer and thick strands of white appeared in it. Heavy lines dug deeply into his face. His frame shrank subtly, and his hands withered into claws. He moaned with pain as arthritis filled his joints. Lionstone raised a hand, and the aging stopped. Within the sphere, the equivalent of forty years had passed in a few moments.

“Talk to us, Nicholas. This is the last chance we can offer you. Are you really willing to die to protect creatures who aren’t even human?”

Judge Nicholas Wesley gave her a smile that had as much of the skull as humor in it. “The lowest clone is more human than you, Lionstone.”

The Empress gestured angrily, and time roared through the sphere like sands rushing through an hourglass. The Judge grew withered and frail. His hair fell out and his skin mottled. A skull replaced his face, as bones pushed out against the tightening skin, and still he had nothing to say. Time passed. The Judge died and his body decayed, and then there was nothing left in the sphere but his torn robes and a few bones crumbling into dust. The guard collapsed the stasis field and the sphere disappeared. The Judge’s robes dropped into the muddy waters and sank from sight.

*     *     *

Out in the antechamber, Captain Silence and Investigator Frost sat alone, in chains, inside a force screen. The field shimmered on the edges of their vision whichever way they looked, so that the antechamber had an unreal, ghostly look to them. Silence wasn’t fooled. The danger they were in was all too real. He’d lost his ship and allowed the Deathstalker outlaw to escape. He should have died honorably at his post as his ship went down. His Clan would have mourned his name, and it would all have been over. But the Investigator had insisted on saving him for her own inscrutable reasons. And so here he was, secured at the ankles, wrists and throat with enough chains to hold a dozen men, waiting to see which interesting and especially painful death the Empress had in mind for him.

Officially he was entitled to a Court Martial before a board of his peers and fellow officers, but the Empress outranked them all when she chose to, so she had first claim on him. Besides, the best he could have hoped from a court martial would have been a quick death. Silence rattled his chains briefly and sniffed. Shoddy workmanship, but still more than enough to hold him even without the force screen. He wasn’t going anywhere. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere the Empress couldn’t find him. Besides, he wouldn’t have wanted to live as an outlaw anyway—always on the run, looking back over your shoulder to see if they were gaining on you. No peace, no chance for happiness … or honor.

Silence sighed heavily, not for the first time, and looked at the Investigator sitting beside him. Their captors had taken special pains with her bonds, loading her down with thick steel chains until a normal person would have collapsed under the weight of them. Frost ignored them, sitting proud and erect on the wooden bench as though it was her own idea to be there. The force screen was mainly for her. She was an Investigator, after all, and no one was taking any chances.

Two armed guards stood before the closed double doors, waiting for the call to bring the prisoners in. They looked large and tough and extremely competent. Silence would have doubted his chances against them even without the chains and with a sword in one hand and a grenade in the other. He sighed again and rattled his chains mournfully.

“I wish you’d stop doing that,” said Frost.

“Sorry. Not much else to do.”

“They’ll let us out of the screen soon.”

“That won’t make any difference, Investigator. We’re not going anywhere.”

“You mustn’t give up, Captain. There are always options.”

Silence looked at her. “Is that why you rescued me from the bridge of the
Darkwind
?”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Thanks a whole bunch. But I forgive you, Frost. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Frost stirred, and her chains rattled briefly. The armed guards looked at her thoughtfully. “I was just doing my duty, Captain.”

“Does that mean you wouldn’t try to escape now, if you could?”

“Of course I would, Captain. I’m loyal, but I’m not stupid. We must keep our eyes open and our wits about us. There are always options.”

And then the double doors swung open a short way, and the two armed guards moved toward the prisoners. One drew his disrupter and pointed it meaningfully at Frost. Silence felt vaguely insulted. The second guard made an adjustment to the controls on his wrist, and the force screen disappeared. Silence looked at Frost.

“If you have any suggestions or ideas, now would be a really good time to share them.”

“We could always use our chains to club anyone to death who got too close to us.”

“Good idea. Get them to kill us quickly. Keep thinking, Investigator.”

The guards gestured for Silence and Frost to pass through the double doors and into the waiting court. They kept well back, both their guns trained on the Investigator. Silence gathered up his chains and rose awkwardly to his feet. It took him a moment to get his balance as the heavy weight shifted, and then he stumbled toward the doors. If he hadn’t had experience on heavy gravity planets, he doubted he’d have been able to move at all. The guards would have loved that. They were just looking for some excuse to beat the crap out of him again. Silence gritted his teeth and kept moving. Frost walked beside him, back straight and head erect, ignoring her chains as though they were so many party
favors. She was courteous enough to keep pace with Silence, and somehow that made it worse.

They passed through the waiting doors and were immediately ankle deep in filthy water. Silence was past caring. It was just one more indignity. He splashed on, fighting to keep his head up. The court was packed. They must be expecting a really unpleasant execution. A narrow aisle formed before him, people drawing back as though not wanting to be associated with him even by proximity. Silence didn’t care. At least they weren’t shouting or spitting or throwing things. Though, come to think of it, he might have preferred a little shouting. The continuing silence was becoming unnerving. He struggled on, Frost at his side, the guards a respectful distance behind them. Silence looked about him as best he could, and the courtiers looked back with something in their faces that might have been expectancy. And it occurred to Silence that the Empress wouldn’t have summoned this many important people to court just to watch him and Frost die. They had to be here for some other, more important, reason. Which suggested that just maybe there were still options open to him, after all.

Finally Silence and Frost came to a halt before the throne of Lionstone XIV. Silence felt ready to drop, but forced himself to stand straight despite the chains. He had a strong feeling this would be a really bad time to show weakness. Frost stood beside him, looking calm and composed, as always. Something moved in the deeper waters not too far away, and Silence wondered fleetingly if there was something alive just below the surface. Something alive and hungry. The Empress did so like her little jokes. It didn’t really matter. If it got too close, Frost would take care of it.

Silence looked back at Lionstone and she smiled down at him coldly. He bowed as best he could. She was his Empress, after all. Frost didn’t bow. One of the guards stepped forward, gun raised to club her to her knees. Frost braced herself and lashed out with a stiffened leg. The guard took the boot in his gut and just had time for a surprised breathless grunt before he went flying backward into the crowd. They all ended up in the water, splashing and cursing. The guard didn’t get up again, and neither did some of the courtiers he’d slammed into. Silence had to smile. You could always depend on Frost to make an impression. A brief clamor of protesting voices began in the surrounding crowd, only to
die swiftly away as the Empress glared at them. She looked back at Silence and Frost, and Silence for one was surprised to find she was still smiling. It only took him a moment to decide that he didn’t like the look of that smile at all.

“Leave my guards alone, Investigator, there’s a dear. They’re frightfully expensive to replace. Believe me, you’re in no danger here. The chains are just a formality.”

“A rather heavy formality, Your Majesty,” said Silence. “May I enquire as to why we are here?”

“We have a use for you, Captain. We were rather annoyed with you and the Investigator. You lost us a perfectly good starship, and you failed to bring us the head of that most wretched traitor, Owen Deathstalker. We wanted his head very much. We were going to stick it on a spike, right here at court, so that everyone could see what happens to those who dare defy us, whatever their status. We were also planning to have you both killed in slow, painful ways, as a sign to those who dared fail us, but … we changed our mind. We have a use for you.”