Deathstalker Return (7 page)

“I shouldn’t have to put up with this. Why couldn’t we have landed right next to the base? I’m tired, my back aches and my feet aren’t talking to me. We should have brought a gravity sled! It’s been years since I had to walk this far, and I hated it then. Look, why don’t I take a rest break here, while you—”

“No,” Lewis said immediately. “I’m not splitting up the party. I want you all where I can see you, and that very definitely includes you, Brett. We’re stronger and safer together. So suck it up, Jes, and keep up the pace. You’re doing well. The sooner we get to Base Thirteen, the sooner we can all rest.”

Jesamine sniffed loudly, and kept going. The trees moved slowly past, only the size and the colors changing, and it was hard to tell how far they’d come or how much farther there was left to go. Jesamine started muttering under her breath, and when that didn’t get her anywhere, began to whine and complain out loud again. Lewis commiserated but was firm with her. In the end, she lurched to a halt and threw a full-fledged temper tantrum. She stamped her foot on the hard gray ground, waved her arms around, cried loud angry tears, and positively refused to go a step further. Lewis and Brett looked at each other, embarrassed. Jesamine had been a star too long, used to people being ready and willing to do all the unpleasant things in life for her. Lewis tried being reasonable. He pointed out that they were closer to the base now than the ship, so they might as well go on, and she’d really feel better if she just kept moving . . . all to no avail. Jesamine just wept bitterly, said he didn’t love her anymore, and refused to take another step. So Rose stepped forward, and looked Jesamine right in the eye. The star and diva shut up immediately.

“We’re going on,” said Rose Constantine. “You can stay here on your own, unprotected, or you can come with us. But if you start whining again, I’ll hurt you. Got it?”

Jesamine wanted to say
How dare you talk to me like that? How dare you threaten me? Don’t you know who I am?
but she knew none of that mattered a damn to the Wild Rose of the Arena. She looked uncertainly at Lewis. “You wouldn’t really leave me behind, would you, sweetie? You wouldn’t let her hit me? Would you, Lewis?”

“Jes,” Lewis said quietly, “I am only a moment away from making you walk in front so I can kick your arse if you slow us down. This kind of behavior isn’t worthy of you. So stop complaining and move. It’s no harder for you than the rest of us. You always said you were a good trouper. Time to prove it.”

Jesamine stuck out her lower lip. “You’re sleeping on the floor tonight, Deathstalker.”

As it turned out, it was only another ten minutes or so before the metal trees fell suddenly away on all sides, and they emerged into a clearing. In the center of the wide open space stood half a dozen tall metal statues. They were twice the height of a man, and the gleaming shapes made no sense at all, though they somehow felt as though they ought to. Light gleamed along their smooth curves that turned and twisted in uncertain directions. Lewis walked slowly up to the nearest statue and studied it carefully. It didn’t help.

“Ashrai sculpture,” said Brett, peering past Lewis’s shoulder. “I’ve heard of it, but usually you only see stuff like this in specialized and very expensive catalogs. I doubt there’s a dozen pieces of Ashrai art in human hands throughout the Empire. Supposedly the Ashrai sculpt these things out of the metal trees using nothing but their minds.”

“And you can only really appreciate them by touching them,” said Jesamine. “They were meant to be felt, not seen. The Ashrai don’t see the world the way the rest of us do. I’ve been trying to acquire even a small piece for years.”

“I really don’t feel like touching that,” said Lewis, and the others nodded.

“Forget the alien porn,” said Brett. “Dump it all out, and fill the cargo bay with these. We could manage two, maybe even three . . . Sweet Jesus, we could sell them on Mistworld for more credits than even I usually dream of. We’d be set up for life!”

“Don’t even think about it,” Lewis said sternly. “We are here as guests, remember? Not thieves, or looters. You really want the Ashrai mad at you?”

“Well, not as such, no,” said Brett. “But there has to be some way . . .”

“
No,
Brett.”

“They’re just shapes,” said Saturday. “They have no soul. My people sculpt in living tissues, torn from the bodies of fallen enemies. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Sometimes I wonder about you,” said Lewis. “And sometimes I’m sure.”

They set off again, leaving the clearing behind. Soon it was lost behind the ranks of glowing trees. They all dreamed about the statues for weeks afterwards.

“How could the old Empire never have realized that this was an artificially created world?” Lewis said finally. “I mean, you only have to look at it. No ecostructure, no living systems; just the trees and the Ashrai.”

“This is an inhuman place,” said Brett. “Alien in every sense of the word. Nothing here to keep a man sane. How is it that Carrion survived here, alone, for more than two centuries?”

“He wanted to be an Ashrai,” said Lewis. “Who knows how the Madness Maze changed him, or what he did with those changes?”

“Do we have any idea what an Ashrai looks like?” said Rose.

“All the official records were wiped long ago, on Robert and Constance’s orders,” said Lewis. “Only hints remain. Massive, deadly creatures, with fangs and claws and gargoyle faces.”

“No,” Jesamine said immediately. “If these are the dragons that Owen called to fight alongside him, they were wise and wonderful and very beautiful. I used to dream about them, when I was a child. Flying through open space with them, like Owen.”

“According to the Dust Plains . . .”

“I know what they said, Lewis. They said it was Carrion. We’ll see.”

And still they trudged on, the heavier gravity pulling at their bodies like weights. The heat never wavered, and there was never even a breath of a cool breeze. The trees seemed bigger, and wider and taller, the longer they walked through them, and they shone brightly in the diffused light. It was like walking through the vaults of some endless catacombs, and a growing sense of awe and stifling oppression fell over the group so that they spoke only in hushed whispers. The forest was just too big, too vast, for merely human feelings. Even the reptiloid Saturday seemed somewhat subdued.

Brett, on the other hand, was silent because he was becoming increasingly preoccupied with thoughts of how much the metal of the trees was worth. Metal from Unseeli was very rare, and therefore very valuable. And if he couldn’t take away even one of the statues, surely even that misery-guts Deathstalker wouldn’t begrudge him a small branch. Or three. Should be easy enough. A sudden stumble, a carefully aimed fall, and it should be child’s play to break off some of the smaller branches with his weight. And then, well, they might as well take the branches with them as leave them just lying around . . . right?

Brett let himself drift just a little away and behind the others, taking his time so no one would notice. He’d actually got within a few feet of the nearest branch when he lurched to a sudden halt, all his instincts shrieking at him. His esp kicked in big-time, as the sheer living presence of the tree hit him right between the eyes like a hammer. It knew he was there. It knew what he was planning. It
growled
at him. Brett whimpered loudly, did his best to mentally project
sorry sorry sorry
and hurried back to join the others. To his disgust, none of them had even noticed he’d been gone.

The projected thirty minute walk had already become more than an hour, and Lewis didn’t believe it was just down to the heavier gravity. Unseeli was a different place, with different rules. There was still no sign of the Ashrai, and Lewis had to wonder if perhaps they were determined to have nothing to do with humans. And if this man Carrion considered himself an Ashrai now, maybe even the legendary Deathstalker name wouldn’t be enough to win his cooperation. Even though he hadn’t admitted it out loud, even to himself, Lewis had been secretly hoping he’d be able to convince Carrion to leave Unseeli and come with them on their quest to find Owen. With a Maze survivor on their side, even Finn would think twice about getting in their way. Lewis scowled as he trudged along, mentally rehearsing various possible arguments.

Jesamine strode along beside Lewis in silence, looking straight ahead and ostentatiously not talking to him, though she wasn’t sure if he’d noticed. He could be very obtuse about some things. She had no one else to talk to. Brett was sulking again, and Rose was a mystery, as always. Of them all, the hard trek through the forest had affected Rose the least. The lanky cow looked like she could walk forever. Saturday, on the other hand, looked increasingly unsettled. He couldn’t connect to this silent, lifeless world, where there was nothing for him to eat or kill or have sex with. The great trees made him feel small, and weak, and he wasn’t used to that.

Almost an hour and a half after they’d left the
Hereward,
the forest finally took mercy upon them and fell away to reveal a great clearing with Base Thirteen at its center. It was a hulking steel structure surrounded by plenty of space, as though none of the trees wanted to get too close to it. The base had been built for function, not aesthetics, but even so, the years had not been kind to it. The steel exterior was weathered and distressed, and punctured here and there with ragged holes. Many appeared to have been punched out from within, either by energy weapons or brute force. The front doors stood open, but Lewis couldn’t honestly say they looked inviting.

He brought his group to a halt at the edge of the clearing and studied first the clearing and then Base Thirteen carefully. There was no sign of anyone waiting to meet them. He activated his comm implant. “Sir Carrion, this is Lewis Deathstalker. We have reached Base Thirteen. Are you here?”

He waited, looking about him, but there was no response. And then he felt as much as heard something approaching, and he looked up. The others looked up too, following his startled gaze. And there, all across the sky, the Ashrai came falling out of the clouds and into the diffused light. They flew unhurriedly through the still air—hundreds of them, their vast membranous wings barely flapping. They were huge, monstrous, grotesque creatures bulging with muscles under rainbow skins, their broad faces composed of harsh bony planes and angles, fiery golden eyes, and a wide mouth full of long needle teeth. Their movements were eerily graceful as they swept across the sky.

Jesamine stared up at them, enchanted. “Oh, Lewis, it is Owen’s dragons! Look at them! They’re not what I thought they’d be—they’re not beautiful—but oh, God, they’re magnificent!”

“They’re scary buggers, is what they are,” said Brett, from behind Rose. “Look at the size of them! Damn, one of those things could make a real mess of a man, if it put its mind to it. I’d back one of them against a Grendel. A dozen Grendels. And give odds.”

“I killed a Grendel in the Arena,” said Rose, one hand resting on the sword at her hip.

“I know,” said Brett. “It’s all you ever talk about, and I do wish you wouldn’t. Please don’t start anything. Or if you must, give me plenty of advance warning so I can get a good running start.”

“I wonder what they’d taste like,” said Saturday, and Brett glared at him.

“Don’t encourage her. You’re almost as bad as she is. Am I the only one here who’s noticed they outnumber us by a hundred to one? And they are big! Seriously big! They’ve probably crapped more dangerous things than us! I can feel one of my heads coming on.” He watched the Ashrai circling slowly overhead. “How does anything that big and that heavy stay in the air anyway? I don’t care what kind of wingspan they’ve got, nothing that massive belongs in midair, particularly when I’m standing underneath it.”

“Calm down, Brett,” said Lewis. “You’re babbling. The Ashrai fly because their esp holds them up. Maybe they can fly unprotected through space after all . . . These are clearly powerful creatures.”

“The song’s back,” said Jesamine, her neck arched almost painfully back as she gazed adoringly into the sky. “It’s so much stronger here. It’s not just the trees. It’s them. The Ashrai and the forest, singing together, bound together. Can’t you hear it?”

None of them said anything, because it seemed to all of them that they could hear
something.
Jesamine opened her mouth and sang a delicate lilting song, older than the Golden Age, older than the age of heroes, from the days of the First Empire, when Humanity originally went out into the stars. The words were lost, but the melody remained, an ancient haunting evocation of days long gone, when to be human was to be part of a great adventure. The words were lost, but not the meaning. In their bones, and in their souls, Humanity remembered.

Jesamine sang, and the Ashrai sang with her. Their great voices filled the air; alien harmonies that joined with Jesamine’s song, augmenting it without drowning it. The song filled the clearing—a celebration of life, and the glory of existence, and the driving need to find a meaning for it all. Jesamine sang, her face full of rapture, and the Ashrai sang with her. Lewis stared at his love, stunned by the power in her voice. He felt as though he was in the presence of something sacred. Jesamine finally broke off, and the Ashrai stopped singing too. Jesamine slowly lowered her head, sweat dripping off her face, and she put out a shaking hand to Lewis. He took her in his arms, making his strength her own, and she clung to him.

“Oh, Lewis,” she said finally, her face turned into his chest. “I think now I finally understand how other people feel when I sing. That was . . . amazing.”

“How did you know that was the right thing to do?” said Lewis.

“I’m not the first person to sing with the Ashrai,” said Jesamine. “Two hundred years ago, Diana Vertue sang with them. Before she became Jenny Psycho. This was the song she sang. It’s still here, in the air and in the trees and in the Ashrai. They have never forgotten. Look at them, Lewis. At least now we know some of the old legends were true. These are the dragons, and they are glorious . . .”