Owen looked at it, and thought for a long while.
By creating the Maze, I have made tomorrow possible. I have made the Terror possible. But the Light People might have created it anyway, at some point. At least this way I get to put my stamp on it. And without the Maze we could never have brought Lionstone and her Empire down. Perhaps if I hadn't done this, Hazel would never have been able to become the Terror, and all those worlds and civilizations would still be alive. Or perhaps someone or something else would have become the Terror, and then Humanity would have no defense against it.
I don't know. The Maze is woven irretrievably throughout human history. Do I have the right to unravel such a knot? No; we need the Maze, and in the end, that's all that matters.
And if I'm wrong?
Then I'm wrong.
The Illuminati fluttered around the thing they'd made, studying it and considering its possibilities. Lucifer settled down beside Owen, and looked at him doubtfully.
"What is the purpose of this device, Owen?"
"Hope," said Owen. "And maybe transcendence."
"Then let us all hope that by the time Humanity gets out this far, they will be worthy of what we have left them."
Owen said nothing.
"We patterned the structure of the Madness Maze on your brain," said Lucifer. "We found its intricacies fascinating. Human, but not just human. Is there something you're not telling us, Owen?"
"There's a hell of a lot I'm not telling you," said Owen. "And if you're wise, you'll leave it that way."
Owen looked at the Maze, and wondered how much of it was shaped by his memories of it; from his past, but the Light People's future. Certainly his involvement in its creation explained why the Maze had always worked best for Deathstalkers. He had paid special attention to the construction of the core at the heart of the Maze, preparing it to protect and sustain the child that would one day come to it. Giles's infant son; the Darkvoid Device.
What is this for? Lucifer had asked.
The hope of Humanity, Owen had said.
It's a bit small, isn't it?
Yes.
When Owen was satisfied that the Madness Maze was complete, he then worked together with the Illuminati to create a guardian for the Maze: a single shape-changing creature derived from Owen's own altered genetic makeup. (He had decided a shape-changer would be best able to hide and protect itself in all the long centuries it would have to survive.) He had to reassure the Illuminati that they weren't creating some kind of living weapon, and so agreed to their demands that it be programmed only as an observer and messenger, and strictly nonviolent.
The finished creature was an exact duplicate of Owen, though it had no personality of its own, as yet. Just a series of instructions and duties, and the instinct to survive. Owen had to smile, thinking of what it would become, after centuries of being other people.
"When you first meet me, in the Maze, many years from now," he said to the creature. "Don't recognize me. Or tell me any of this. It would only upset me, and distract me from all the things I must do."
"Understood," said the creature. "I will remember."
"Yes," said Owen. "I know you will."
And he also gave the shape-changer his ring, the black-gold ring that was the sign and symbol of Clan Deathstalker authority, to be given to his descendant Lewis Deathstalker, at a specific time and place. Owen was concerned that Lewis might be so far removed from the direct Deathstalker bloodline that the Maze might not recognize and receive him. Owen felt naked and strangely lost without the ring, but Lewis needed (or would need it) more than he did now. It still felt like giving up yet another part of his human past. His human soul.
He tried to think if he'd forgotten anything, but he couldn't remember.
So he said good-bye to Lucifer and the other Illuminati, wished them well, and dropped out of the present again, plunging back through time in his endless pursuit of Hazel d'Ark.
CHAPTER EIGHT
*
MONSTERS OLD AND NEW
There were no ELFs anymore. They were all dead and gone, absorbed and murdered by a greater mental force, just as they'd always feared. Only their destruction came not from their most hated enemy, the mass-mind of the oversoul, but instead from their own allies and founders, the uber-espers. They had turned on the ELFs, overwhelmed their defenses, and ate up their minds, their personalities, so that not one trace of the rogue espers now remained. Now there were just the uber-espers, those old and terrible monsters, and the armies of thralls they commanded. Five grotesque, abhuman minds, operating hundreds of thousands of thrall bodies.
The Shatter Freak. The Spider Harps. Screaming Silence. The Gray Train. Blue Hellfire.
Old minds, old demons, older by far than most people realized. The uber-espers had been waiting and plotting and planning from the shadows of the Empire for untold centuries. When you expect to live forever, you can afford to take the long view. Lesser evils came and went, but the uber-espers endured, and now their time had come. They had spent centuries deciding what they would do, and how they would do it, arguing constantly among themselves of course, but never doubting that one day they would see all Humanity bow down before them.
They were forced into hiding for many years, held down first by the Mater Mundi's authority, and then by fear of Owen Deathstalker and the other Madness Maze survivors, and finally by a Golden Age that was just too sane and stable to allow them any foothold. But now, everything had changed. The old adversaries were gone, the Golden Age had proved rotten at the core, and there was no one left on Logres to stop them from doing all the awful things they'd dreamed of doing. The Emperor's hold had been weakened, the oversoul and the Maze people had all gone away, and the uber-espers… had made themselves like unto gods. With hundreds of thousands of thralls forming a great energy pool, the uber-espers finally felt strong enough to do anything they wanted. And so they did.
They launched their first attacks against the Emperor Finn's vastly overextended armed forces. There weren't that many left outside of the Parade of the Endless; just a few battalions shuttling back and forth between the other main cities, maintaining order through dramatic shows of force. A few dozen war wagons and battle cruisers, dug up relics from Lionstone's time, great dusty steel beasts hovering in the skies, dependent more on reputation than firepower. All of them easy targets for psi storms that came raging out of nowhere, without warning. The uber-espers blew the war machines apart from a distance, ripping apart steel bulkheads with their thoughts and overloading the engines till they blew. Psychokinetic attacks crushed the heavy metal ships in invisible fists, while psionic energies wiped computers and hexed tech. Force shields collapsed and guns wouldn't work. Men on the ground cried out in shock and horror as blazing gravity barges fell ponderously out of the sky, and gravity sleds slammed against each other like toys in the hands of insane gods. Black smoke billowed up from the crippled remains of Finn's armored forces.
The next step was to possess the men on the ground. The uber-espers reached out greedily, using the strength of the ELFs they'd absorbed, and battalion after battalion screamed helplessly inside their heads as they were taken over, and alien thoughts moved their bodies. What had once been Finn's armies marched into the cities they'd only been sent to subdue, and murdered and possessed every man, woman, and child in their path. They didn't need to kill anyone, but they did anyway, just for the fun of it. What city defenses there were collapsed in shock and panic, as mass possessions swept through the streets and squares in an unstoppable tide. The uber-espers were now so powerful that one thrall could create another just by looking into their eyes. Possession had become infectious. It leapt through the stampeding crowds like wildfire, jumping instantly from mind to mind. People ran, but there was nowhere to run to. The soldiers had the cities surrounded.
Attempts at resistance were doomed from the start, because no one could trust anyone. Your closest friend or family could be a thrall, or be made one in a moment. People hid
inside their houses, and barricaded the doors and windows, but the thralls just broke in anyway, not caring how much they damaged their bodies in the process. Men and women with smashed hands and lacerated arms smiled triumphantly through the jagged gaps they'd made, and forced themselves upon the defenseless souls within.
Some thralls were even able to manifest esper abilities on behalf of the uber-espers that rode them, if only briefly. They strode giggling down the streets, and houses exploded or burst into flames on either side of them. Roads cracked apart and sewers hurled foulness up into the streets. Sometimes the esper thralls blew people apart with a look or a word, or made them eat their own flesh; or whatever else occurred to the uber-espers.
The cities became Hell on earth, choked with smoke and the smell of blood, and the uber-espers danced their thralls through the burning streets, tearing everything down just for the fun of it. And when nothing was left but fire and rubble and the piled-up bodies of the dead, the uber-espers marched their thralls out of the dead streets, and off down the road to the next city. And so it went, city after city, population after population, until armies of thralls were on the march all over Logres, clogging the roads and tramping through fields full of crops. There was no one left to stop them.
Cities in the path of the thrall armies called out to the Emperor for help, but he had nothing to send them. What few troops he had left he needed to protect the Parade of the Endless. Not that Finn would have sent any help even if he could have spared it. He didn't see the point in giving up even more of his armed forces to be possessed. And so cities set up barricades on all the roads leading in, and desperate men stood guard with whatever weapons they could find. Anyone approaching a city was shot on sight, without warnings, no exceptions. It was the only way to be safe.
Until the thrall army came marching up the road, rank upon rank of them, walking right into the face of the defenders' guns, trampling over the fallen until they could swarm the barricades and eat up the defenders' minds. And then they would march on, into the city.
From the Rookery, Nina Malapert's news sites stayed on the air twenty-four hours a day, using remote control cameras to bring in the latest news and sightings. They spread word of danger areas, and cities under threat, as fast as they could get the information out. Telling everyone on Logres, and all the watching worlds across the Empire, of what was happening now that the Emperor Finn had lost control. Nina's newsreaders became hoarse and strained and white-faced as they told of the endless atrocities and mass murders and possessions, and burning cities all across the world. Nina ran herself ragged trying to keep on top of everything, getting warnings out with as much advance time as possible, and lists of safe places to go. She kept the remote cameras moving from city to city, sending live pictures of what was happening. The uber-espers didn't interfere. They wanted everyone to know what was coming for them.
Even the newsreaders on Finn's propaganda news channels joined in, ignoring the scheduled programming. They knew a real emergency when they saw one. They shared resources with Nina's sites, trying to get useful information to those who needed it. After a while they started to feel like real news people again, and ignored the piling-up propaganda reports, and the increasingly angry orders from Finn's censors, in order to stick with the real story.
Massive crowds of refugees took to the roads and even commandeered the air traffic lanes, abandoning cities in the path of the uber-esper hordes. They ran away from their homes and their lives, taking only what they could carry with them, not sure where they were going, not knowing if anywhere could ever be truly safe again. They filled up the roads, millions of refugees on the move, shocked and tearstained and numb with horror, leaving behind them a trail of abandoned possessions that became too heavy to carry. They moved as fast as they could, and kept rest stops to a minimum. The thralls were coming after them, and they never got tired, never slowed, never stopped.
Some cities and towns took the refugees in, some turned them away, some shot at them on sight. Everywhere the few charitable cities and larger towns became saturated with people, overloaded to the breaking point with people too tired to continue. Many just sat down suddenly, wherever they were when their strength ran out, too numb to care, too exhausted even to eat. Facilities quickly broke down, even the most basic comforts and services unable to cope. There wasn't enough of anything to go round. Food distribution between cities just stopped. Civilization was falling apart, on the homeworld of the Empire.
The uber-espers soaked up the energies supplied by millions of captive minds, and their powers blossomed as never before. They could do things now almost beyond even their wildest dreams. And being the kind of creatures they were, they looked upon each other with increasing suspicion. They had never trusted each other, quite rightly believing that any or all of them would turn on any or all of them who seemed dangerously powerful or invitingly weak. For a while they discussed scattering, leaving Logres for other worlds, so they could each have their own planet to subjugate and play with, safe from the interference and threat of each other's ambitions. The idea was attractive.
But they knew they were more powerful together than they ever could be apart, and besides, if they did go their separate ways, there was always the chance that one of them might become allied with another, and prey on a mind alone. They couldn't risk that. And even more than this, some strange unexpected force from within kept them from taking the idea too seriously. Some inner voice, that whispered it would be a very, very bad thing for the uber-espers ever to become separated.
So instead they decided to take control of Logres first, and then send their thralls out to conquer the other worlds. Once they forced their way into the Imperial Palace and possessed Emperor Finn, they could shut down all reports of what was happening, wait a while, and then happy smiling faces on all the news sites would announce that the emergency was over, everything was fine, and the happy smiling Emperor would order the other planets to open their starports to the goodwill ambassadors he was sending them… and the plague of possession would jump from world to world to world…
The uber-espers laughed, drunk on blood and suffering and power, and the promise of so much more to come.
The wave of mass possessions swept from city to city, crossing the whole world in a matter of weeks, and nothing could stop it or even slow it down. It jumped from eye to eye, head to head, often over before it was even suspected. The weaker minds tended to fall first, and so it was that children and even babies became thrall changelings. They attacked their parents and siblings with whatever came to hand, chuckling with alien glee as blood soaked their small hands. The uber-espers had always believed in the use of horror to destabilize opposition. And they did so savor the taste of the more vivid emotions, as they picked through brains like gore crows on a battlefield. They sent their thralls running madly through the streets, killing for the joy of it until killed in their turn, and shock and terror and panic destroyed any defenses the cities might have been able to assemble.
But there was still one final horror, even beyond what had already happened.
Diana Vertue discovered it. She led her followers, the Psycho Sluts, out of the Rookery and the Parade of the Endless, and they flew high in the skies of Logres like gaudy hawks of war, on a mission to protect the next city in the thralls' path. Douglas Campbell hadn't wanted them to go. He sympathized, but he didn't think they could do anything against the massed might of the uber-espers, and he was afraid of losing them. If they were to be possessed, there was no saying how much damage they might do. Diana had nodded, said she quite understood, and then informed Douglas that she and the Sluts were going anyway. And there must have been something of the old Jenny Psycho in her voice, because Douglas just nodded, and turned away.
Diana and the Psycho Sluts came to Delta City in the early hours of the morning, dropping out of the crimson-streaked dawn like so many avenging angels. They took up a position on the outskirts of the city, by an abandoned barricade made of piled
-up furniture, and linked their minds to set up a mental barrier in the path of the advancing thralls. The barrier shimmered on the heavy morning air like heat haze, shot through with shimmering energies. Diana could hear the thrall army coming long before she saw it. The crash and crash of so many feet, an army beyond counting, shaking the road with their studied malevolent approach. They appeared slowly over the curve of the horizon; at first just a crowd, and then an army, and then so much more. An uncountable force, all walking in perfect lockstep, their feet a thunder on the road.
The uber-espers must have known the mental barrier was there, but they didn't even slow their thralls' advance. They marched on, all with the same awful smile, the same horrid eyes, and crashed right through the barrier. The moment a thrall passed through it, the mental contact with the uber-espers was cut off, the possessing mind forced out of the body. Which fell forward, to lie limp and still on the ground, with empty faces and dead eyes; nobody home. The thralls kept coming, crowding through the barrier, collapsing into growing heaps of unmoving bodies before Diana and her appalled followers.
For this was the final horror. The uber-espers had become so powerful that once they took over a mind and ate it up, they wiped the brain completely clean. The old personality was subsumed, gone forever. A thrall was just a shell now, an empty body for the uber-espers to use as they would. Thralls could no longer be freed from possession and returned to their lives. Possession meant mind-death.
Deathstalker Coda Page 36