Deathstalker (25 page)

“Hazel d’Ark and Owen Deathstalker? About time you got here. I’ve been expecting you.”

Hazel and Owen were still deciding how to react to that when the huge figure stepped back from the doorway and gestured impatiently for them to enter. They did so, giving him plenty of room, and he sniffed again as he slammed the door shut behind them and locked it. Owen started to draw his disrupter, but stopped when Hazel put a firm hand on his arm. The huge figure stomped back in front of them and produced something that might have been intended as a smile.

“I’m Chance. I run Abraxus. Take a look around, and I’ll be with you in a minute.”

He moved off without waiting for an answer. Owen had a
few in mind anyway, only to forget them as he got his first good look at the people who made up the Abraxus Information Center. There were no computers or comm units, no runners or technicians. Instead, two lines of ramshackle cots filled the long narrow room, pressed close together, with a central aisle between them. On the cots, children lay sleeping. They all had intravenous drips plugged into their arms, though their bony forms and skeletal faces suggested they weren’t getting much nourishment from them. They also had catheters leading out from under the thick blankets that covered them, dripping into filthy bottles by the beds.
How long have they been here like this?
thought Owen, and moved reluctantly closer to get a better look. Hazel stuck close beside him.

The children ranged from toddlers of four or five to some who appeared to have just entered their teens. They twitched and turned in their sleep or comas, but their faces seemed somehow intent, focused, and their eyes rolled under their closed eyelids. Some seemed to be muttering to themselves. Two middle-aged women who looked more like charladies than nurses moved unhurriedly along the rows of cots, checking the catheters and IVs, emptying and filling where necessary, but otherwise paying the children no attention. Some of them were secured to their cots with thick leather restraining straps.

Owen felt sick, and a growing rage burned within him. He didn’t understand what was going on here, but he didn’t need to understand to hate it. No one had the right to treat children in such an inhuman manner. The sword leapt from his scabbard with a harsh, rasping sound, and he started down the central aisle with murder in his eyes. Chance was checking through papers on a desk at the far end of the room. He didn’t look up as Owen advanced on him. And then Hazel grabbed his sword arm and pulled him to a halt.

“Hold it, Owen. You don’t understand.”

“I understand these children are in hell!”

“Yes, maybe they are. But there’s a purpose to this. I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

Owen hefted his sword and then lowered it reluctantly. “All right. Explain it to me.”

“Chance could do it better. Stay here and I’ll go get him. Promise you won’t do anything till you know the whole story.”

“No promises,” said Owen. “Get Chance. And tell him if I don’t like what he has to tell me, I’m going to kill him right here and now.”

Hazel patted his arm reassuringly as one would an angry, dangerous dog and hurried down the central aisle toward Chance. Owen’s hand clenched tightly round his sword hilt in rage and frustration. He’d never seen anything like this, even in the worst hellspots of the Empire, and he was damned if he’d let it continue. He walked slowly down the aisle, looking from face to face, seeing only a kind of desperation in their gaunt features. One young teenager was stirring restlessly under his restraining straps, muttering fiercely to himself. Owen leaned over the bed to listen to the quiet, breathy voice.

“Brave notes in screaming shocks … The pale harlequins are swarming again … Dear lost shoes and delicate monks are dancing round the summerstone. …”

Owen straightened up, obscurely disturbed. It was clearly gibberish, but it bordered on the edge of meaning, as though he might understand it if he just listened long enough. He looked up to see Hazel coming back with Chance and raised his sword just a little. The two of them stopped a respectful distance away, though Hazel seemed more impressed by the drawn sword than Chance. Owen smiled coldly at the big man. It didn’t matter how big he was, or what he had to say. Someone was going to pay for what had been done to the children.

“The restraining straps are there to protect them,” said Chance, his voice flat and unimpressed. “The children are espers, but they can’t always handle what their minds show them. One boy clawed out his eyes rather than see. I don’t take chances with them anymore. All these children are retarded to some extent or other. Idiot savants with limitless memories and wide-ranging telepathy. Their minds roam freely out over the city while their bodies rest here, trawling the thoughts of the population and picking out what nuggets of information I require.

“Their families sell them to me when they can no longer look after them, and I put them to work. There’s no room on Mistworld for the weak or the handicapped. If they weren’t espers, and therefore potentially useful, they’d just be abandoned in the cold and left to die. As it is, I look after them, and they look after me. Few of them last long. By the time
I get them, they’ve already had hard, brutal lives. Fortunately for me, there are always more to replace those who burn out. Don’t look at me that way, Deathstalker. I care for them all while they’re with me. What comes before and after that is beyond my help.

“Perhaps now we can get down to business. My children told me you’d be coming, and why. You don’t have much time. If my espers knew you’d be here, you can bet that others do, too. The penalty of living in a city full of telepaths with loose lips is that there’s damn all privacy. Not that I have any right to complain, of course. It is, after all, how I make my living. You needn’t worry about payment. The previous Lord Deathstalker had an account with us. He left instructions that if you ever turned up here looking for help, I was to assist you in locating Jack Random and send you to him. Are you going to stand there holding that sword all day, Deathstalker, or will you allow us to help you?”

“I’m still thinking about it,” Owen said harshly. “How did you link up with my father?”

“He made Abraxus possible. It was my idea, but his money. He saw the advantages right off, and all I had to do to repay him was make sure he got a copy of whatever information my children turned up. Your father was a visionary: never afraid to experiment.”

“He was never afraid to make a profit,” said Owen, reluctantly sheathing his sword. “Usually at someone else’s expense. How many children have died here since you started Abraxus?”

“Too many. But they would have died anyway. I keep them alive as long as I can. It’s in my interest to do so.”

Owen looked at Hazel. “You’re being very quiet. Don’t tell me you approve of this obscenity?”

“This is Mistworld, aristo,” said Hazel gently. “Things are different here. If sometimes we’re hard and cold, it’s because we have to be to survive outside the Empire. If we ever weaken, even for a moment, the Iron Bitch will wipe us out down to the last man, woman and child. She’s done it before on other planets. You know she has.”

Owen looked away, his eyes moving from one small sleeping form to another, and there was only room in him for a bitter helplessness.

“Ask them,” he said brusquely. “Ask them where Jack Random is.”

Chance nodded and strode slowly down the center aisle, looking from one side to the other, pausing now and then to study a particular twitching face before moving on. He finally stopped by a boy who looked to be twelve years old. The young esper was scrawny to the point of malnourishment, and his bony face was slick with a sheen of sweat. He was mumbling quickly, breathlessly, his head rolling limply from side to side. He’d somehow managed to pull the IV out of his arm, despite the thick restraining straps, and Chance put it back with practiced ease.

He knelt down beside the bed and put his mouth as close to the boy’s ear as he could. He talked slowly, smoothly, and his quiet voice seemed to calm the esper a little. He stopped mumbling and shaking his head and fighting the straps. His eyes stared straight ahead, seeing nothing, or perhaps everything. Owen and Hazel moved forward, and Chance gestured brusquely for them to stay where they were. He produced a small twist of paper from his pocket, took something from it and placed it in the esper’s mouth. Owen thought at first it was a pill, and only slowly realized from the movements of the boy’s mouth that it had been a piece of candy. Chance put his mouth right next to the esper’s ear.

“Come on, Johnny boy, you can do it. Do it for Chance. I’ve got another treat for you. Got it right here. Just find the man for me, Johnny. Find the man called Jack Random.”

He murmured on and on, never raising his voice, never stopping, quiet but persistent, and finally the boy spoke calmly and clearly.

“You want the rebel, the name that is known everywhere, the disrupter of systems, but he is not to be found. Jack Random has another name now, and another life. The Empire’s hounds came too close too often, and he went to ground. Go look in his hole, his hiding place. Go to the Olympus health spa down on Riverside, and ask for Jobe Ironhand. He won’t want to talk, so it’s up to you to be convincing.” He broke off abruptly and turned his head to look at Owen and Hazel with his all-seeing eyes. “I see you, Deathstalker. Destiny has you in its clutches, struggle how you may. You will tumble an Empire, see the end of everything you ever believed in, and you’ll do it all for a love you’ll never know. And when it’s over, you’ll die alone, far from friends and succor.”

“That’s enough, Johnny,” said Chance. The esper closed
his disquieting eyes and turned his head away, and his words became quiet and meaningless again. Chance got to his feet and rejoined Owen and Hazel. “Don’t take too much notice of that last bit. A lot of my children claim to get glimpses of the future, now and again, but they’ve proved wrong as often as right. Otherwise, I’d have been a rich man by now.”

“I’ve no plans to die anytime soon,” said Owen. “I’ve been on borrowed time anyway, ever since Hazel saved my ass on Virimonde. Let’s get out of here, Hazel. This place gives me the creeps.”

Chance shrugged. “Nothing keeping you here, Death-stalker. You’ve got your name and address, all paid for in advance. The rest of the money in your father’s account will go toward keeping me quiet about your visit and your destination. I do regret the necessity, but times are hard, and an honest man must turn a credit where he can. I’m sure you understand.”

He broke off abruptly as Owen reached out, took a good handful of Chance’s leathers, and lifted him up on his toes. Owen stuck his face into Chance’s and smiled unpleasantly. “You understand me, Chance. You breathe a word about me to anyone at all, and you’d better pray they make a real good job of killing me. Because otherwise I’ll find you wherever you run and kill you by inches. Got it?”

And then, without looking round, he slowly noticed that something had changed. It was very quiet, very still, and he suddenly realized that the sleeping espers had stopped muttering. Without releasing his hold on Chance, he looked around him. The espers had raised their heads, and they were all looking at him, their faces cold and focused and entirely menacing.

“Put him down, Owen,” Hazel said gently. “Please put him down.”

Owen let go of Chance and stepped back. He didn’t even try to draw his sword or his disrupter. He somehow knew they wouldn’t be able to help him. The feeling of menace was thick on the air, and a slow power burned beneath it. Chance readjusted his clothing fussily and sniffed at Owen.

“My children protect me, Deathstalker. Always. I suggest you leave now before they decide to do something unpleasant and terminal to you.”

“Time to go,” said Hazel. “He’s not joking, Owen. Those kids are dangerous.”

“So am I,” said Owen. “I’m a Deathstalker, Chance, and don’t you ever forget it.”

“The Empress took your name away,” said Chance.

Owen smiled coldly. “It wasn’t hers to take. I’m a Deathstalker until I die. And we never forget a slight or an enemy.”

Chance looked down his nose at him. “That’s what your father said to me the last time he was here.”

“I’m not my father,” said Owen. “I fight dirty.”

He turned and left with Hazel close behind him. The espers on their cots watched them go, their heads turning as one.

In the cold and mists outside the bakery, three toughs with drawn swords waited impatiently in the adjoining alleyway for their prey to emerge. They’d had to pay out good money at the Blackthorn to pick up the trail on the Deathstalker and his woman, but they expected to be fully repaid, and a hell of a lot more, by the reward money on their prey’s heads.

Three toughs from the underside of Thieves’ Quarter, Harley, Jude and Crow. Cutpurses, back-stabbers and muscle for hire. Normally they would have had more sense than to go after a renowned swordsman and warrior like the Deathstalker, but the reward money had inflamed their minds, and anyway, they felt safe enough attacking together from ambush. With any luck, it would all be over before the Deathstalker even knew what was happening, and then they could each take turns with his woman before they killed her. They clutched their sword hilts tightly and stamped their boots impatiently in the snow. They hadn’t planned on so long a wait, but then, planning wasn’t exactly their long suit, any more than patience.

It was snowing again, and the mists were getting thicker. If the temperature had been any lower, it would have dropped off the bottom of the thermometer. Crow scowled. He was nominally the leader, because he talked the loudest, but he was beginning to get a bad feeling about the ambush, even though it had been his idea in the first place. It was taking too long. They couldn’t just keep standing around in the alleyway with their swords in their hands. Someone would notice, even in Mistport. He turned to Jude to complain about the wait in general
and the cold in particular, and then stopped. Jude wasn’t there. Crow blinked. Jude had been there a minute ago, large as life and twice as smelly. Crow looked quickly around the narrow alleyway, but there was nowhere he could be hiding. At least Harley was still there. Crow grabbed him by the arm, and Harley nearly jumped out of his skin.