Deathstalker (73 page)

“Never mind protecting your silicon ass!” said Ruby. “Get us the hell out of here! Do something!”

“What would be the point?” said Giles. “Where could we go that they wouldn’t follow us? Our only hope is to pass through the Maze and wake the Hadenmen. Don’t tell me you’re afraid, bounty hunter?”

“All right, I won’t tell you, but someone’s bound to notice. Only the foolish and the dead are never afraid, and I
have no intention of becoming either. There are too many unknowns here. I don’t like the odds.”

“I’ve faced worse odds than this in my time,” said Random. “Of course, I got my ass kicked quite a few times. You stick with me, Ruby. I’ll hold your hand if things get scary.”

“You so much as lay one finger on me,” said Ruby coldly, “and I will personally cut it off and make you eat it. Same goes for anyone else.”

“I believe her,” said Owen, and Hazel nodded solemnly.

“Enough talk,” said Moon. “My people are waiting.”

He strode forward into the entrance of the Madness Maze and was immediately lost to sight. The others watched, half-tensed for some angry reaction within the Maze, but the moment dragged on and nothing happened. They all looked at each other, but there was nothing left to say, so one by one they entered the Maze, until they were gone, with nothing to show they had ever been there.

Owen Deathstalker entered the Maze cautiously, disrupter in one hand, sword in the other. Up close, the bright shimmering of the steel walls was almost painful, no matter how he scrunched up his eyes. Static sparked on the air around him and rustled in his hair. It was bitter cold in the Maze, and his breath steamed on the air before him. He shivered despite himself and immediately looked back, ready to make some remark so his companions wouldn’t think he was shivering from fear, and only then realized he was completely alone. He quickly retraced his steps, but although he had only made a few twists and turns in the Maze, he couldn’t find his way back to his friends or the entrance. He called out, and his voice echoed loudly in the silence, but there was no reply. He started to shout again, then stopped himself. He had a strong feeling someone or something was listening, and it wasn’t any of his companions. He activated his comm implant and subvocalized his message, just in case.

“This is Owen. Can anyone hear me? Can anyone hear me? Please respond. Oz, can you hear me? Oz, are you there?”

There was no sound at all over his implant, not even static. He was on his own. He scowled, hefted his gun and his sword, and moved on, heading deeper into the Maze. At first he checked the floor for hidden trapdoors and the walls for hidden mechanisms, but slowly it came to him that the
Maze’s secrets would be more subtle than that. He tried taking only left-hand turns, and then left followed by right, but finally he made his choices at random in response to some deeper, more receptive instinct.

Time passed, until he had no idea of how far he’d come or how far the Maze stretched. He forgot about the Imperial starcruiser, or even why he’d entered the Maze in the first place. There were only the steel walls and the twists and turns of the path, leading him remorselessly on toward something momentous. It seemed to him he could hear breathing, slow and steady and gigantic, gusting about him like a warm, wet breeze. And above and beyond that, the regular distant thudding of an enormous heart. Neither of them were in any way real, and he knew it; it was just his mind trying to interpret something new in ways he could understand. The feeling of being watched was stronger than ever, only there was more to it than that. It was as though the Maze was somehow alive and aware of his presence in it. Not like a rat in a scientist’s test, or an antibody in a bloodstream, but more as though he was the final component in an equation that had never before been completed. He put his sword and gun away and wandered on, drawn by something, or the promise of something, he could not name. He saw faces and heard voices, there were lights and sounds, and images from his past surged around him like a returning tide, implacable and unrelenting.

He met the Wolfling for the first time again, half man and half beast, made not begotten, and then abandoned by his creators because he was so much more than they had intended. Owen would never have done such a thing. He had always wanted children, but never considered himself worthy of them. He wanted them to have a real father, not like the distant authority figure that was all he’d ever known.

Again he saw Giles for the first time, held in his shimmering pillar of light like an insect trapped in amber, ancestor and legend and so much more. More and less than Owen had imagined him to be. The great warrior he had been trained to emulate since he was a child; a perfection never to be equaled. A tired old man in greasy furs, burdened by successes and failures alike, guilty of mass murder, clinging desperately to the honor of the Deathstalker Clan.

Owen fought his way through the deadly jungles of Shandrakor, virulent with life, red in tooth and claw, horrid
shapes out of nightmares that came at him from every side. Fighting back with sword and gun. Fighting on because there was nothing else to do. He could not, would not, turn and run while his companions needed him.

Back, back. Once again he walked the narrow cobbled streets of Mistport, snow crunching under his boots, the fog like a pearly gray sea. He met Ruby Journey, cold and fearsome, and Jack Random, so much more fallibly human than his legend. He knelt on the blood-spattered snow beside a young girl wrapped in tattered furs. She sobbed hopelessly over her mutilated legs, and there was so much blood. His arms were crimson with it to the elbows, and it dripped from his fingers. She was just a child. And for all his strength and skills and status, he was helpless to do anything for her to undo the terrible thing he’d done to her.

He stood his ground, alone and beleaguered by a pack of blood-hungry killers, so that Hazel might have a chance to escape. He cut and hacked and watched them die beneath his blade, but there were just too many of them, and in the end they dragged him down. And part of him said he deserved it. He fought on anyway. It was all he knew how to do. And then Hazel returned with Moon to save him. The Hadenman. Boogeyman. To be watched and studied but never, ever trusted.

He fought his own guards on the grassy hillsides of Virimonde, cutting down familiar faces suffused with rage and greed. He killed his mistress, Cathy DeVries, and held her in his arms as she died. He’d cared for her, but when the moment came, he cut her down without hesitating. That was how he’d been trained. Historian. Warrior. Fighter. Killer.

He talked with his father, revered head of the Deathstalker Clan, who had time for everyone and everything but his own son. Owen wanted to love him, tried to admire him, but always they were separated by different visions of faith and strength and honor. Bound by blood, thrust apart by politics, Owen never knew how important his father was to him until he was gone, and he was left alone in a hostile world. He ran away to Virimonde, hiding in his histories, hoping not to be noticed. Wanting no part of the politics and intrigues that had killed his father. Wanting to be a scholar, not a warrior, closing his ears to what he didn’t want to hear.

Owen’s thoughts swirled backward, faster and faster, pausing here and there at important moments and faces. The
passing moments of his life that gave it shape and meaning, held up before him so that he could understand them and choose which were really important. Back and back, deeper and deeper. Courage. Love. Honor. Until he reached the inner core, where all things are decided. He looked back over his life, from beginning to end, seeing everything clearly for the first time, and embraced what was really important to him. To be a warrior and a man of honor, defined by duties willingly accepted, in the defense of friends and a cherished cause, to protect those who suffered and punish the guilty. To fight to sec an end to fighting, to care for those the Empire had persecuted, to be a hero to those in need.

To be a Deathstalker.

The Madness Maze took the man called Owen Deathstalker, reduced him to his essentials and then rebuilt him, leaving him stronger and more focused than he had ever been before. The dross had been discarded, the merits polished till they shone. He saw clearly now and would not look away. The Maze gave him gifts that he would need, and its blessing, and then it let him wake up.

Owen looked around him, awake and alert, his memories already fading like an interrupted dream. Something had happened, something wonderful, but already he was forgetting, because no man could bear to see himself tod clearly. His thoughts were bright and sharp, like the air after a storm has passed. He felt invigorated, cleansed, more than he had been, his life burning within him like a beacon. He was standing in a wide circular space surrounded by the steel walls that he immediately understood to be the center of the Madness Maze. The heart of the storm, where all was quiet and at peace. The others were with him, and they all looked different. It was a difference he recognized. They all looked sharper, more distinctly themselves, than they had been before.

“So that’s what the Maze is for,” said Giles. “Wulf tried to explain it to me, but I never could understand. We’ve been reborn, given a second chance. And all our sins forgiven.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Hazel. “I feel like I’ve just come out of a week’s drunk, and there are things I should remember.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Ruby. “Nothing happened. Nothing at all.”

“No. Something happened,” said Random. “I was … somewhere else. Why can’t I remember?”

“Because your mind has undergone shock treatment,” said the Wolfling. “And for the sake of your sanity, you are forgetting the pain. You have been born again, and birth is always traumatic.”

Ruby looked at him suspiciously. “You’re not going religious on us, are you? That’s all we need: an evangelical werewolf.”

“Whatever it was, it was of the spirit as well as the mind,” said Owen. “I’ve never felt so clear, so focused. How do you feel, Moon?”

“An interesting experience,” said the Hadenman. “There were equations like dreams, explaining everything, pure mathematics spiraling upward to infinity. I was at the center of the universe, and I felt like I could reach out and touch everything. It seemed to last forever, but according to my internal records, only a few moments have passed since we entered the Maze. I would suggest that we have all encountered a very sophisticated mind probe.”

“No,” said Giles, “there was more to it than that. The Maze seemed—”

“Alive,” said the Wolfling, and everyone nodded at that, even Ruby.

“Why is it called the Madness Maze?” Owen said suddenly. “I’ve never felt more sane in my life.”

“Because most people who go into the Maze don’t come out intact,” said the Wolfling. “Somewhere along the way they lose their minds. Not everyone can face the reality of what they really are behind all the masks and evasions. Most go mad. I’m not sure whether that’s because they see too much in the Maze, or because they won’t let themselves see enough. For some, even madness isn’t enough protection. They die.”

“Wait just a minute there,” said Owen. “How many go mad and die?”

“So far,” said the Wolfling calmly, “only twenty-two out of the hundreds of people who passed through the Maze emerged intact. Including you. I’m really very impressed by your achievement. I wouldn’t have put money on it.”

Hazel glared at Giles furiously. “And you let us just walk
right into it? No warnings, nothing? I ought to cut your heart out!”

“Damn right,” said Ruby.

Everyone had turned so that their guns were covering Giles, but he seemed entirely unmoved. “It was necessary,” he said quite unemotionally. “You wanted to get your hands on the Darkvoid Device, didn’t you? Well, I’ve brought you right to it. This is the one place I could safely leave it. In the heart of the Madness Maze.”

He turned and walked away, ignoring the guns, and after a moment the others followed him. In the center of the open space stood a large glowing crystal, roughly circular, some four feet in diameter. Giles stood next to the crystal, carefully not touching it, and stared into the glow. His face softened just a little, and he smiled. The others crowded around the crystal, drawn by curiosity and the smile on Giles’ face. Only the Wolfling hung back. Owen leaned over the crystal, and the glow deepened, becoming warm and golden as it revealed what lay within. And there, wrapped in a single blanket, lay a tiny human baby. No more than a few weeks old, its details were still soft and settling, but its face was clear and distinct, the plump cheeks slightly flushed. It was sleeping quietly, breathing slow and steady around the thumb in its mouth. It looked beautiful and innocent and entirely helpless.

“He is my clone,” said Giles softly. “My son, in every way that matters. A Deathstalker, born of my blood, I was experimenting with a new process to produce esper clones of extraordinary power. He was the result. He’s known very little of life, by my design. The last time he was awake, he used his esper abilities at my instigation, and a thousand suns disappeared. Just like that. I had created the Darkvoid, and the most powerful weapon ever known. So powerful I didn’t dare let it ever be used again. I lowered him carefully into the deepest form of sleep and brought him here. With the Wolfling’s help I teleported him into the center of the Madness Maze, where he could sleep undisturbed, surrounded by instruments to preserve and protect him, and to ensure that he never wakened again. Worlds have risen and fallen, the universe has turned, and still he sleeps on. All his needs are taken care of. He does not age. What happens now is up to you.”

“Why didn’t you put him in stasis?” said Hazel.

“Stasis has no effect on him,” said Giles. “Very little does.”

“Kill it,” said Ruby. “Destroy the unnatural thing. It’s more dangerous than any weapon ever could be. It’s a monster. Kill it now. While we still can.”

“No,” said Random immediately. “This is too important for us to just turn our backs on it. I think we’re looking at the next stage in human evolution.”