Deathstalker Coda (25 page)
Authors: Simon R. Green
“So the cup of tea’s out of the question, then?” said Owen. “Pity.” He looked at Hermione. “I can get you out of here. Take you somewhere else. Just say the word.”
“I am happy here,” said the Empress Hermione, in a high childish voice. “I belong here.”
Yes
, Owen thought reluctantly.
You do. And one day, you will meet a man named Giles Deathstalker, and the child you make together will do such wondrous things . . .
, Owen thought reluctantly.
You do. And one day, you will meet a man named Giles Deathstalker, and the child you make together will do such wondrous things . . .
He sighed loudly, and looked at Ethur again. “There won’t be any more visitors from the future.”
“Can you guarantee that?” said the Emperor. “Not that it matters. In your position, you’d say anything. You don’t seem nearly as dangerous as your predecessor, but we don’t feel like taking any chances. Not after what you did with the lost city.” He paused suddenly, struck by a thought. “Tell us about your future, monster. What will happen between now and then, to produce such as you?”
“In my time,” Owen said, “all of Humanity is faced with the threat of extinction. An enemy is coming that we cannot stop or turn aside. It is my hope that by tracking down the Mad Mind, and stopping it, I can learn how to save Humanity in my time. You must not stop me, Your Majesty. The future of our species may depend upon what I can learn.”
“A future full of monsters doesn’t deserve to be saved,” said Ethur. “Perhaps by dissecting your living body and probing your mind, we will find the knowledge to create a different future. Your slow and hideous death will serve many purposes, Owen. Try and remember that, while you’re screaming. We will have justice, for what was done to us. We will have vengeance.”
“And after everything I’ve done for you,” said Owen.
“We will learn how you remade that city and its people, from the agonies of your body and your mind. Nothing will be wasted.”
“Think of all the good I could do.”
“We will allow no greater power than us in this Empire,” said Ethur. “We alone know what is best for Humanity.”
“Nothing changes,” said Owen Deathstalker.
He blew the energy gyves off his wrists with a careless shrug, and the surrounding guards cried out in shock. Energy guns trained on him from every direction, and even Dominic Cairo and Glory Chojiro had weapons in their hands. The courtiers screamed and shouted, and did their best to scrabble back out of the line of fire. All around Owen, people were changing into more dangerous battle forms. Owen ignored them all, his gaze fixed on the stupefied Emperor.
“It doesn’t matter what time it is; Emperors are always a bad idea. I think the whole idea’s intrinsically corrupting. People just aren’t supposed to wield that much power. It isn’t good for them. So, sorry, but I decline to be vivisected. I have work to do.”
He looked casually around him. The guards were now great metallic forms, or creature hybrids. There were looming insectoid forms, with wild energies coruscating around their branching horns. And even a few shapes that made no sense to him at all. And there were more guns pointed at him than he’d seen in the whole Rebellion. Owen looked back at Ethur.
“Boo!”
All the guns opened up at once, tremendous energies leaping out to destroy him. Owen stopped them all in midair with a thought. They hung helplessly on the air, caught between one moment and the next. Owen considered the matter for a moment, and then absorbed all the energy into himself. He didn’t want any of it running loose when he left and injuring innocent bystanders. Assuming there were any . . . The guards tried to fire again, but their guns didn’t work, because Owen had decided they didn’t. He could have killed them all with a thought, but he didn’t. They were just doing their jobs. He could have killed the Emperor . . . but history had to take its course. And he didn’t want to abuse his power. That way led to Emperors, and Mad Minds.
He strode up the steps to the top of the dais, to look right into Ethur’s face. “I ought to rip you right out of that throne and strangle you with your own life-support systems. But I can’t, because history has its imperatives. What you will do, in years to come, will eventually lead to a better Empire. My best revenge . . . is knowing that you’d really hate the Empire that’s coming.”
“This isn’t over yet,” said Ethur.
He gestured at his guards, and they closed in around Glory and Dominic, and turned their guns on them. Owen looked at the guards, and then back at the Emperor.
“You are fond of these two,” said Ethur. “You care about them. We have had reports. So, surrender or they die. Right here and now. Or will you sacrifice your newfound friends to necessity, and prove yourself as inhuman as the Mad Mind?”
“There’s only one monster in this court, Ethur,” said Owen.
He gathered up Glory and Dominic with his mind, and in a moment they were back at the starport. The Investigator and the Defender looked dazedly about them, shocked by the sudden transition. Great silver ships loomed over them, and people came and went, intent on their own business. Glory recovered first, and gave Owen a hard look.
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Neither did I,” said Owen. “I’m learning new things all the time now. It seems I’ve destroyed your lives, just by meeting you. I’m afraid you can’t go back to court—ever. You can bet Ethur will be looking for someone to take out his anger on, now that he doesn’t have me.”
“He would have had us killed,” Dominic said numbly.
“We spent our lives in duty and service to his name, and at the end it meant nothing to him.”
“Yes, well,” said Owen. “Emperors are like that, mostly.”
“He betrayed us,” said Glory. Something had changed in her face, in her eyes. “Something must be done, to block the power of Emperors.”
“Even Heartworld won’t be safe for us now,” said Dominic. “We’ll have to try and lose ourselves on one of the border worlds. Have to say good-bye to our families, to our friends . . . All I ever wanted was to be a Defender of Humanity, and I’ll have to give that up too. Damn you, Owen. Why did you have to choose us?”
“I’m sorry,” said Owen. “Believe me, I know how you feel.” He looked around the starport, and at the city in the distance. “This Empire is a legend in my time; the greatest flowering of human civilization. I hadn’t expected . . . this. So much more, and so much less. But if anyone should have known you can’t trust in legends, it’s me.”
Glory frowned. “If you’re from the future, this should be history to you. Didn’t you study the period before you left?”
“There are no records,” said Owen. “Just . . . stories.”
Dominic looked at Owen searchingly. “Something’s going to happen—something . . . bad? What aren’t you telling us, Owen?”
“Is the Mad Mind coming back?” said Glory.
“No.” Owen looked at them both compassionately. He would have liked to lie, but he owed them the truth. “Your Empire will decline and fall. We don’t know exactly when, or why. Perhaps you would be safer on a border world, after all.”
Dominic and Glory moved closer together, as though for comfort and protection. A directionless fear moved in their eyes, of bad times coming they now knew they wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Who are you, Owen?” said Glory. “Who are you, really?”
“Just a man, trying to do the right thing,” said Owen. “In the end, that’s all there ever is.”
“Where . . . when will you go next?” said Dominic.
“My friend—your Mad Mind—leaves a trail when she travels back through time. I’ll pick up the trail again and follow where it leads. Hope to catch up to her before she can do any more damage. I only missed her by twelve years here, and that’s not bad after a trip of nearly a thousand years. Good-bye, my friends. Make new lives for yourselves. And remember: look forward, never back.”
He let go his hold on time, and the planet dropped away from under him, leaving him suspended in open space again. He reached out for Hazel’s trail, and was surprised to find she hadn’t immediately dived back into the past again. She’d made what looked to be a side trip, to one of the border worlds, on what would one day be called the Rim. Curious, Owen followed her trail, treading the stars under his feet as he headed for the edge of civilization.
It was a green world, young and full of life, and the human presence there was still a new thing. Owen hung in orbit above the planet, studying it with his extended senses. He didn’t need to see or hear things directly anymore; he just knew. There were barely a hundred cities on this world, most of them little more than stone and timber. A single starport served only visiting ships. It was a low-tech civilization, sliding slowly but inevitably back into barbarism. Armies warred constantly on each other, though it wasn’t clear what they had to fight over, except perhaps territory. It was a purely human world, with no extreme body shapes or adaptations. Some guns, but steel was the weapon of choice. Owen was amused to find he felt more comfortable here than he had on Heartworld.
He materialized in the midst of a great forest. Massive trees with blue-black bark, and heavy fleshy leaves of a green so brilliant they were almost luminous. They towered all around him, packed so closely together they blocked out most of the light from the brilliant silver-blue sun. The air was cool and crisp, full of the scents of living things, and a curling ground mist moved this way and that, though no breeze blew. Owen looked slowly around him. There were dark shadows in between the trees, and dust motes curled slowly in the silver shafts of light, but there was no sign of any human intrusion.
Once again Hazel had been and gone. He’d missed her again. And yet there’d been no trace of any damage on this world, nothing like the devastation she’d visited on Heartworld. What had brought her here, to a place so far away from everywhere? Owen looked round sharply. Someone was coming. After a while, he heard footsteps approaching, and a young boy calling excitedly after baying hounds. And finally a dark-haired boy of about ten came running down the narrow trail, following two loping hound dogs. He called out sharply to the dogs as he spotted Owen waiting, and the hounds immediately crashed to a halt. They studied Owen suspiciously, panting heavily, as the boy came slowly forward to stand beside them. He had a sword on his hip. Owen gave the boy his best reassuring smile.
“Hi. I’m Owen. I’m just visiting.”
“Offworlder,” said the boy, taking in Owen’s clothes. He was dressed in roughly stitched furs over a plain tunic. “We don’t see many tourists these days. And mostly we like it that way. You’ve come a fair way from the starport. Are you lost?”
“No,” said Owen. “Just . . . seeing the sights. Can you tell me your name?”
The boy grinned briefly. “Ma always says I have no manners. I’m Giles VomAcht, of Hadrian City. My father is war master there. And these overeager boys here are called Hunter and Tracker. Because that’s what they do.”
The hounds looked up as they heard their names, and Giles petted their heads till they settled again.
“Out hunting?” said Owen. “What are you after?”
Giles grinned again. “Anything that moves, really. We’re not fussy. We just love to hunt. We catch enough for good eating, and let the rest go. What are you doing here, Owen?”
Owen grinned. “Following a trail. Just like you.”
Owen and the boy Giles sat down by the side of the trail, and talked together for a while, enjoying each other’s company. Owen found the boy easy and engaging, and the boy was eager for news of other worlds. The dogs settled down at their feet, yawning and scratching themselves as they waited patiently to get back to the real business of the hunt.
“Don’t you have a Clan name, Owen?” said Giles, after a while. “Family is important. The VomAchts rule in Hadrian City.”
“Of course. I am Owen, head of Clan Deathstalker.”
“Damn! Now that’s a Clan name! Deathstalker . . .” The boy said it several times, savoring the length of the name. “I’d love a name like that. A warrior’s name. Where do you come from?”
“Most recently, I was at Ethur’s court, on Heartworld. I had an audience with the Emperor.”
Giles spat on the ground and said a rude word, and the dogs stirred uneasily at the sudden anger in the boy’s voice. “He’s not our Emperor anymore. We broke away. This is our world now, though the Clans are still arguing over what to call it. We don’t miss Ethur, or his Empire. They never did anything for us.” He frowned heavily, sticking out his lower lip. “Too many freaks and mutants in the Empire these days; that’s what Da says. It was supposed to be a
human
Empire.”
human
Empire.”
“What do you want to be, when you grow up?” said Owen.
“A warrior, of course! Like my father. I don’t get to see him much; he is often away, needed in the wars. Fighting to keep our city safe. I wish he had more time for me. I know, it’s selfish, but . . . When I am grown to a warrior’s age, I will fight for our city too. I will make him proud of me. Make him take notice.”
The boy’s brooding face belied his steadfast words, and Owen decided to change the subject.
“Giles, have you seen anything . . . strange, recently? Anything unusual? Probably right around here.”
“Yes!” Giles said immediately. “A couple of months back. I saw an angel, right here, in the woods!” He looked at Owen carefully, to be sure his new friend wouldn’t laugh at him, and then reassured by what he saw in Owen’s face, he continued. “At first, I could only feel her presence, watching me. Then she became a bright light, shining down on me, and finally a glowing woman. Very pretty, with red hair. She didn’t have wings or a halo, but I knew she had to be an angel. I could feel the power in her. You believe me, don’t you, Owen?”
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