Deathstalker Legacy (62 page)

“None of this was my choice,” said Lewis. “I’ve lived so long without love, I thought I could live without it forever, if I had to. I had other things to give my life purpose, and meaning. I had duty, and honor. I had friends, good friends . . . friends I would have died for. I had work that mattered, and my life made a difference. I was happy; mostly. And then love comes along, right out of the blue, and I realized I’d never really known what happiness was. Only problem: I had to give up everything else that mattered to me to have it. Don’t blame Jes for any of this. We were just . . . two people who should never have met, for everyone’s sake but our own. We tried so hard to stay away from each other, Anne; to do the right thing, and to hell with what it cost us. But the universe seemed almost to conspire to push us together.”

“Oh sure,” said Anne. “It’s not your fault. It never is. The universe just pushed you right into bed.”

Lewis scowled at her. “Don’t try to make this out to be nothing but sex, Anne. I’m old enough to know the difference between my heart and my dick. I love her, and she loves me. And yes; we slept together. And it was wonderful.”

“Good enough to sell your soul for? You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Lewis. And if I know, it won’t be long before others know too. You can’t keep a thing like this secret. Jes . . . isn’t worth all this, Lewis. I’ve seen it all before, with other men. I’ve known her a lot longer than you have.”

“This time it’s different!”

“That’s what they all say! You think you’re the first man to come crying to me over Jes? I have been here before, and it always ends in tears.”

“I thought she was your friend.”

“She is. That’s why I don’t have any illusions about her. Though this time . . . I thought she’d have more sense. I thought you had more integrity! Don’t come looking to me for forgiveness, or support. Don’t expect me to pat you on the shoulder and say
Hey, these things happen.
This is treason we’re talking about, Lewis! When this gets out, and you can bet your last credit it will, almost certainly sooner rather than later, it could destroy the Throne and the House and everything else we’ve spent our life supporting and believing in!”

“I know. But soon . . . it will all be over. She’s going to marry Douglas, and I’m going off on the great Quest. And everyone will live happily ever after. Eventually.”

Anne looked at him sharply. “There was something in your voice, just then . . . when you talked about the Quest. Don’t you even believe in that anymore?”

Lewis hesitated, and looked away, unable to meet her eyes. He couldn’t tell her Owen was dead. She wouldn’t be able to keep it to herself. She’d feel duty-bound to tell . . . someone, and once the word started spreading it would never stop. It would be all over the media . . . Lewis couldn’t be responsible for that. It would be cruel to take away Humanity’s last hope, in the face of the coming Terror. He looked back at Anne, trying to frame some comforting lie, but her eyes bored into his, and the words turned to ashes in his mouth.

“The AIs told you something, didn’t they?” Anne said suddenly. “What is it? What could be so bad, that you don’t want to tell me? What do they know, that they’ve kept from us?”

And still he couldn’t tell her the truth, so he told her a partial truth instead.

“They showed me records . . . from the days of the Rebellion,” he said quietly. “Showed me Owen and Hazel and the others, the people rather than the legends. It was . . . disconcerting, to see them as only human, rather than myths in the flesh. They were glorious, magnificent; great fighters. But they didn’t look like miracle workers. Maybe humans, even those who’ve passed through the Madness Maze, won’t be enough to stop something like the Terror. It might not be wise to pin all our hopes on them, even if we can find them.”

“But . . . they had powers! They did . . . amazing things!”

“Did they? Or is that just part of the legend? The stories Robert and Constance made up, to inspire us? Shub told me many things, but in the end what I saw was just a man called Owen. A great man, certainly. But whatever my ancestor was, he wasn’t the god we’ve been sold for the past two hundred years.”

Anne frowned. “Maybe not. It doesn’t matter. Your ancestor and his friends worked a miracle once, when they overthrew Lionstone and her evil Empire, and laid the foundations for our Golden Age. Maybe they can do it again. They could still be alive, out there, somewhere. The Quest is necessary, Lewis. We need to find Owen, if only to inspire us again. Tell me; if it turned out that you were the one to find the blessed Owen . . . what would you say to him?”

Lewis sighed. He’d tried to hint at the truth, but she didn’t want to hear it. He considered her question honestly, surprised to find that the answer mattered to him, as well as to her.

“I think I’d ask him . . . where he found the strength, to make so many hard decisions. And perhaps . . . I’d ask him to come back and be
the
Deathstalker, so I wouldn’t have to be anymore. Selfish, I know. But sometimes, this name weighs so damned much. People expect so much of me because of it. And just like Owen, I’m not allowed to be only human, with human needs and weaknesses . . .”

He rose abruptly from his chair and slammed the coffee mug down on Anne’s desk, slopping hot coffee everywhere. He paced around the office, not looking at Anne, circling the confined space over and over again like a caged animal, while Anne watched him warily from her chair. He was scowling now, his eyes far away; his ugly face flushed with anger and frustration and something that might just have been despair. Barely suppressed violence showed in the bulging muscles of his arms, in the set of his shoulders, and the heavy tread of his feet. It frightened Anne to see Lewis like this; a strong man reduced to baffled indecision. He walked faster and faster, his hands knotted into fists so tight his knuckles showed white. Sooner or later he was going to lash out, and the only question was who was going to get hurt. Apart from himself.

“I don’t know what to do, Anne!” His voice was harsh and ugly now, and she flinched at the sound of it. Lewis didn’t notice. “All the things I believed in seem to have been built on sand, and the tide is washing it all away. No one’s who I thought they were; not even me. Everywhere I look, my world is falling apart. The people have gone insane, all our great institutions have feet of clay, and the Terror is finally here and headed right down our throats. I finally find love, after so many years alone, and I have to walk away from it. Because just like my bloody ancestor, I’m not allowed to think about my own life, my own wants and needs and desires. I’m a Paragon and a Deathstalker, so I have to be better than that. I have . . . I have to . . .”

He burst into tears, sudden harsh sounds that shook his whole body as the tears ran jerkily down his ugly face. He stopped pacing, and lashed out at the nearest wall with his fist. He hit the wall again and again, putting all his strength and desperation into every blow, bloodying his knuckles. Anne’s hands went to her mouth as she clearly heard bones crack and break. Blood ran down the wall as Lewis’s fist crashed into it again and again, and all the time he was crying like his heart would break. Anne rose slowly up out of her chair, walked up behind him, and hesitantly put one hand on his shoulder. He rounded on her, breathing hard, his face working violently, and then he hugged her to him, clinging to her like a child. She rocked him gently as he wept, murmuring soothing words as he buried his face in her neck. They held each other tightly, the way they used to back when they were children and the whole world had seemed to be against them. Finally Lewis ran out of tears, nothing left in him but a terrible, empty tiredness.

And in the end, he was the one who let go first. Who straightened up, and gently pushed Anne away. He’d always been the one who’d been able to do the hard, harsh, necessary things. Anne stepped back, studying him with thoughtful eyes. Lewis found a clean handkerchief and dried his eyes. His hands were entirely steady. He looked at his bloody, broken hand, winced as the pain hit him for the first time, and awkwardly wrapped the handkerchief around it. Anne watched him do it, and felt a slow cold pain in her breast, where her heart would have been if she’d believed in sentimental things like hearts, and before she could stop herself the words came rushing out.

“Lewis; maybe . . . maybe we could run away. You and me, together. Forget all this. Just . . . jump a ship, any ship, heading anywhere, and leave all this behind us. To hell with it all, to hell with everyone but us. Neither of us likes who and what we’ve become, since we came here. To this world, this city, these lives. It’s not too late! We could still—”

“No,” Lewis said quietly. “No, we couldn’t. Not and still have any respect for each other, or ourselves. I can’t just walk away. I still have my responsibilities, my duty, and my honor. Tarnished a bit, perhaps, but they’re the only things left in my life that still make sense. I couldn’t give them up, and still be me. I’ve lost so much, and I’ll have to give up even more; but I still know what it means, to be a Deathstalker.”

“Duty and responsibility,” Anne said harshly. “I am so tired of those words. We gave our lives to them, but what did they ever do for us? Did they make us content? Did they make us happy?”

“Could we ever be happy, somewhere else, knowing we’d turned our backs on the only things we’d ever really believed in? No, Anne; sometimes . . . you just have to suck it in, and play the cards you’re dealt. Because to do anything else, would be to betray ourselves. To make our lives a lie.”

“This is your last chance, Lewis,” said Anne. Her eyes were pleading, but her voice was very cold.

“I know,” said Lewis. “Trust me, I know.” He stepped forward, and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. “But sometimes the only honorable thing left to do, is to take your hand away from the lifeboat, and drown. Good-bye, Anne. I don’t think we’ll be meeting again. First, I’ve got to get this hand fixed, and then I’ve got a lot of work to do, planning the logistics for the Quest. I won’t be at the Wedding. And I don’t think . . . I’ll be coming back. Let Douglas and Jesamine have their life together, without a specter at the feast to spoil it.” He smiled finally, sadly. “Who knows; maybe I’ll find an answer to all my woes somewhere out there, on the Quest. There sure as hell isn’t one here.”

He left her office then, not looking back, ducking past the door leaning precariously in the doorway. Anne watched him go in silence, refusing to cry so much as a single tear, and finally she turned away. There was work to be done, and calls to be made.

 

Douglas Campbell, King and Speaker of the Empire, did what he always did when he was lost and confused and needed to find his way again. He went home. All the way home, back to the old manor house in the country, where he’d been raised as a child. Far away from the city, far away from anywhere, House Campbell stood alone in its extensive grounds and gardens, home and sanctuary to generations of Campbells down the many centuries.

Douglas’s father, William, had retired there after he gave up the Crown, to putter around his gardens and play at being the historian he’d always fancied himself. He seemed happy enough to hear his son was coming to visit. Douglas hadn’t told him why he was coming. Truth be told, he wasn’t entirely sure. Mostly he just needed to get away from all the noise, from all the decisions he had to make, from all the people so desperate to get his attention. Douglas wanted somewhere he could escape from the pressures for a while, somewhere he could think in peace.

He piloted the flyer himself, taking neither an official pilot or a bodyguard. Just him and the flyer, alone in the sky. His many confidants and advisers, Anne most definitely among them, had blown their collective stack when he informed them bluntly of his intentions, but he refused to be browbeaten into changing his mind and doing the sensible thing. He’d been a Paragon a hell of a lot longer than he’d been King, and he was quite capable of looking after himself for a while. Besides; the flyer had its own guns and force shields, and so many computers it practically flew itself.

It took Douglas over an hour to reach the old manor house, even flying at top speed in an air lane reserved exclusively for him. Douglas didn’t mind. It gave him time to relax properly, and he enjoyed looking down at the passing scenery. Logres was still a bright and glorious world, away from the sprawling cities, full of beautiful vistas and grand rolling views. It occurred to him that this was the real Logres, the real homeworld of Empire; not the overcrowded warrens of the cities. Which were indeed packed full of marvels and wonders and sights to please the eye and astound the heart; but sometimes you could have too much of a good thing.

Douglas landed easily on the private landing pad at the boundary of the family property, and after he’d powered down the systems and disembarked, he spent some time just standing on the edge of the pad and looking out over the expertly landscaped grounds stretching away before him. It seemed to him that the gardens had never looked so beautiful. (He tried not to see the armed and armored guards silently patrolling the perimeter. He knew they were necessary; even though William was no longer King, he was still a target for all kinds of hate groups. The ELFs, the Shadow Court, and many other terrorists and scumbags would just love to get their hands on William, for ransom or revenge, or just to put pressure on the current King. So the guards were necessary. Douglas knew that. But still they detracted from his happy childhood memories of his old home, so he did his best to ignore them.)

The gardens were breathtaking at this time of the year, blooming even though it was midwinter everywhere else, thanks to some clever programming of the weather control satellites. Rank, even retired rank, had its privileges. The great green lawns, expertly cropped and shaped, stretched away before him for miles, immaculately laid out. There were low hedges and peaceful walkways lined with rows of trees, and marvelous flower beds blazing with colors, like so many rainbows fallen to the earth; all planned and maintained with almost ruthless geometric precision. The flowers came from dozens of worlds, nurtured and protected by a whole cadre of specially trained technicians, for whom
gardener
was really too limiting a word.