Deathstalker Coda

by Simon R. Green

  Keeping a careful eye on the gun in Stuart's hand, du Katt pulled the cloth away from the large glass jar, revealing the severed head of Dr. Happy. The head was in pretty bad condition. Most of the skin had rotted away, showing patches of discolored meat and bone. The lips had receded back from the protruding teeth, and the eyes had shriveled up in the sockets. Thin wisps of hair sailed away from the misshapen skull, drifting slowly on the preservative fluids that filled the jar. What made it so much worse was that the head was very definitely still alive. The eyes tracked back and forth, fixing on people in turn, and the mouth moved constantly, as though trying to speak. Everyone studied the head with varying amounts of horror and disgust, except for Nina, who pressed forward eagerly.

  "Oh, this is just gross! Puketacular! This is going to look really great on the next news broadcast. Lead spot guaranteed; they won't be able to look away. We were all sure Finn had him killed long ago. Why didn't Finn have him killed?"

  "It wasn't for want of trying," Mr. Sylvester admitted, gesturing for du Katt to put the glass jar down on a nearby table. The head bobbed slightly, and a few bubbles popped out of the eaten-away nose. "It seems Dr. Happy had taken to dosing himself with some of his more esoteric concoctions. He was never the same, after he came back from Haden. As I understand it, and I'm quite prepared to admit that I don't, the good Dr. Happy has been dead for some time, but he won't lie down. Finn used him as target practice for a while, and then he had Dr. Happy beheaded, to stop him from running around and upsetting the servants. The body then ran about the lab, crashing into valuable equipment, while the head called the Emperor names. In the end the body was captured, cut up, and burned, and the ashes scattered in separate locations, just in case. And he sent you the head. It is yours to do with as you please, and no, you can't send it back again. The same goes for du Katt, of course."

  "What the hell was Dr. Happy trying to achieve with his drugs?" said Nina, kneeling before the glass jar, and tapping on the glass with her fingers, to try to attract the head's attention.

  "No one's exactly sure," Mr. Sylvester said uncomfortably. "Apparently, at some point he saw beyond the boundaries of reality, and what he found there destroyed whatever rational part of his mind was left. All he did after that was throw things at people and wander through the palace corridors singing show tunes. Badly."

  Douglas's attention was fixed on the sweating, shaking Elijah du Katt. "So, clone master, have you anything to say for yourself?"

  "None of it was my idea, Your Majesty! You must believe that! It was all down to Finn, all the things I did…"

  "Yes," said Douglas. "All the things you did. Like desecrating my brother's grave for the cell samples you needed to produce his clone. Like aiding and abetting in the imprisonment and death of my father. Things like that."

  Du Katt tried to speak, but nothing come out, and he stood silent under Douglas's accusing gaze.

  "The Emperor supposed you would want to execute du Katt and Dr. Happy yourself," said Mr. Sylvester. "So he sent them to you. As a gift, and a sign of… good faith."

  "Yes," said Douglas.. "I want to kill them. For all the harm and suffering they caused, for all the lives they poisoned and ruined. But I can't just kill them. That would be wrong. Personal vengeance masquerading as justice is Finn's way. I have to be better than that. There has to be justice. There has to be a trial."

  "We don't have time for trials," said Diana Vertue, striding briskly into the room without waiting to be invited or announced. "Come on, Douglas; you didn't really think you could hold this meeting without me knowing? I am a telepath, among other things. What's the matter; were you afraid I wouldn't approve of an alliance with Finn? Hell, I can face reality when I have to. A very temporary alliance against the uber-espers is the only sensible answer to our current problems. But we don't have the time to waste on show trials for trash like this. If you can't kill them, I can."

  She looked at Elijah du Katt, and he collapsed dead on the floor. She looked at the severed head in its jar, and Nina recoiled with a squeak as head and jar vanished in a flare of psionic energies. Diana looked at Mr. Sylvester, and he flinched and cried out.

  "So perish all traitors," said Diana Vertue, still sometimes Jenny Psycho. "Say hi to Finn for me, Mr. Sylvester. Tell him I'll be seeing him soon."

  Mr. Sylvester was still shaking when he was escorted back out of the Rookery, to carry Douglas's acceptance of the alliance back to Finn Durandal.

  Douglas Campbell addressed a huge rally of his people, in the biggest open square in the Rookery. It took hours for the crowd to assemble, as damn near everyone came to listen. Nina's cameras floated overhead, carrying Douglas's words to the rest of the city, and Logres, and all the worlds in the Empire. Everyone knew about the thralls, everyone knew what the stakes were, so Douglas kept it short and simple.

  "We have to go out and fight the thralls. We, and Finn's people, are all that stand between total domination of Logres by the uber-espers. I know it won't come easy, to fight alongside Finn's soldiers. Thugs and bullies and scumbags, most of them. But… the enemy of my enemy is my ally, if not actually my friend. There will be time for settling old scores later. After we've beaten the uber-espers and their thrall army.

  "And we can beat them. Thanks to the training we've put you through, preparing for the rebellion, you're all first-class warriors. The thralls aren't. All they have is numbers, and there's a limit to how many of them can get into the city at one time. And because they're being controlled by minds far away, they won't be able to change tactics or react quickly to changing conditions. That should give us the advantage we need. And remember: always shoot to kill, even if you think you recognize someone. The people you knew are dead, mind-wiped by the controlling minds. We can't save or rescue them; their bodies are nothing more than empty shells.

  "So, go and prepare yourselves for war, and victory. It is our time, come round at last."

  The crowd cheered him until their throats were raw, brandishing their weapons at the sky, and of everyone there, only Douglas wondered if what he'd said was really true.

  Douglas went back to his hotel room, to be alone with his thoughts for a while, only to find an old familiar face waiting for him on the viewscreen Nina's people had set up. The media tech who'd taken the call nodded quickly to Douglas, and then hurried out of the room. Douglas lowered himself slowly into his chair, never taking his eyes off the face on the screen. Lewis Deathstalker smiled back at him.

  "Douglas. It's been a long time."

  "Yes. Yes, it has. Hello, Lewis."

  "Hello, Douglas. A lot has changed, since we last spoke."

  There was no sign of Jesamine Flowers on the screen. Douglas didn't ask. "I've been talking to one of Finn's creatures, a Mr. Sylvester. He's admitted to planting and spreading lies about you and Jes. I'm so sorry, Lewis. I should have known."

  "I did try to tell you," said Lewis.

  "I know you did. But I was rather… upset, at the time. You and Jes… Oh hell, Lewis. Come home. All is forgiven. Can you forgive me?"

  "Of course," said Lewis. "What are friends for? Even if you did behave like a complete prick."

  They laughed quietly together, for the first time in a long time.

  "About coming home," said Lewis. "That's the point of this message. The fleet is on its way. We should be with you in a day or two. Maybe less, if the stardrives don't explode under the strain we're putting on them."

  "That is good news," said Douglas. "We desperately need allies with major firepower. Are you up to date on what's happening here?"

  "Yeah. We never miss Nina Malapert's broadcasts. How the hell did the uber-espers get that powerful?"

  "Beats the hell out of us. Have you heard anything about Shub?"

  "Just that all their machines have shut down. All our ships' AIs are offline."

  "I tried contacting Shub for help when it all went to hell here," said Douglas, frowning. "No one's answering. No reply from their Embassy, or their homew
orld. That has to mean something."

  "Could the uber-espers have taken them out? I wouldn't have thought they could possess artificial intelligences, but… Or maybe the Terror's got to their home planet?"

  "No," Douglas said immediately. "I'd have heard about that. All the latest reports say the Terror's still on course, and days away from its next target. What kind of support are you bringing me, Lewis? I could use some good news."

  "Seven hundred and fourteen starcruisers, plus hundreds of ships from Mistworld and Virimonde. And… a couple of surprises. On top of that, Jesamine and I, and Brett Random and Rose Constantine, have all been through the Madness Maze. We're pretty surprising ourselves, these days, if not exactly in Owen's class. And John Silence is with us! The legend himself! He's the admiral of our fleet."

  Douglas leaned forward eagerly. "You've been through the Maze! What was it like?"

  Lewis thought about that for a while. "I don't know whether it's a machine, or alive, or both. It opens you up.

  Makes you more than you were. It's like being in another place, maybe the place we were before we were born. It feels like coming home, like family. Oh hell, Douglas, there just aren't the words."

  "Apparently not. Pour on the speed, Lewis. We need you and your fleet here soon, or you'll be too late to do anything but scorch the whole damned planet from orbit. Don't hesitate to do that, if there's nothing else left. The uber-espers cannot be allowed to leave this world."

  "I'm not sure even a scorching would kill those monsters," said Lewis. "But you can trust me to do whatever's necessary."

  "Of course," said Douglas. "I always could. How is she, Lewis?"

  "She's fine," said Lewis.

  They looked at each other for a long time, but there really wasn't anything else they could say.

  Diana Vertue and the Psycho Sluts labored together to produce a psionic working that would shield and protect the Rookery while they were out in the city. Plugged directly into their unconscious minds, the working would hold the shield in place without their having to think about it all the time, for as long as one of them still lived. There were some in the Rookery who wouldn't be going out to fight; those too young or too old, or still recovering from the last invasion, and they had to be kept safe from possession, as well as attacking thralls. The shield would keep out the uber-esper minds; they'd have to turn up in person to force a way in, and they weren't that stupid.

  But what happens if the uber-espers do turn up in person? someone asked.

  Run like fun for the nearest horizon, Diana said crisply. It won't do you any good, but it should take your mind off the horror to come.

  You're such a comfort, Diana.

  I know. Aren't you glad I'm here to tell you these things?

  The thrall armies of the uber-espers finally came to the Parade of the Endless by all the roads at once, and marched across the city boundaries laughing and cheering and singing ugly songs. Sometimes they made sounds like animals, or things that had never had a voice before. They poured into the city down a hundred roads, from a hundred dead cities; millions of possessed men and women and even children, run by five terribly powerful minds. They found no victims waiting for them in the outskirts; the people living there had long since abandoned their homes, retreating to the better-defended center of the city. Some had fled out into the surrounding countryside, hoping to avoid the marching armies, but the hovering uber-esper minds picked them out easily, and added them to the horde, and now they marched back into their city with someone else living in their heads. The thralls smashed and burnt the houses they walked past. Just because they could.

  Finn pulled his forces back from the city boundaries, in carefully practiced disorder, pretending to fall back in a panic, but actually retreating just slowly enough to keep the thralls pursuing them, towards the ambushes and booby traps Finn had waiting for them. And as the thralls swarmed into the city, the people of the Rookery came storming out. They swiftly made contact with the retreating forces, who were so scared they were actually pleased to see the very rebels they'd been fighting the week before. Most of the clone guards, still wearing their steel masks, just didn't have the practical experience to deal with fighting on a scale like this, and were glad of expert minds to tell them what to do. They were programmed to follow orders from anyone who gave them with sufficient authority.

  The thralls came in, the defending forces stopped retreating and went to meet them, and vicious hand-to-hand fighting filled the city's streets and squares and open parks. The defenders had swords and axes, guns and grenades. The thralls mostly had improvised weapons, and a vast superiority in numbers. Blood flew and bodies fell, and the tides of battle surged blindly this way and that. Diana Vertue and the Psycho Sluts flew high above it all, hanging on the sky like gaudy birds of prey, casting a protection over the defenders below, so that the thralls couldn't possess them with eye contact.

  The thrall armies, and through them the uber-espers, were thrown and confused at first when their main tactic suddenly no longer worked, and they took a lot of losses before they gathered their wits and urged the thralls on into open combat. They plunged forward with swords and knives and often just their grasping, clawing hands. They were all attack and no defense, because there were always more to replace those who fell. Sometimes just the sheer force of numbers was enough to overwhelm and overrun even the best-prepared defenders. It was clear to the uber-espers that they wouldn't be claiming any more thralls in the Parade of the Endless until the defenders were defeated, and Diana and her Sluts were brought down. Or until the uber-espers found the courage to leave their bolt-holes and join the attack in person.

  They might. They were all in the city, or more properly, under it. And they did so want to pull this famed city down, and make it theirs.

  Terrible fighting raged back and forth in the streets, and blood and guts splashed the walls and ran thickly in the gutters, as the bodies piled up on every side. A dozen thralls fell for every defender, but the odds were thousands to one. The thralls kept pouring across the city boundaries, and there were still more on the way. They had no real tactics, only mass movements and the voices in their heads screaming Kill! Kill! but there seemed no end to their numbers, and unlike the defenders, they never got tired or careless or afraid. The rebels from the Rookery were spread all over the city, inspiring others through their vicious example, but they couldn't be everywhere.

  Two armies clashed, bodies fell and did not rise again, and the focus of the fighting moved slowly but inexorably towards the heart of the city, and the Imperial Palace.

  And while all this was going on, Douglas Campbell was somewhere else. He and Tel Markham crept through deserted side streets, avoiding the fighting, heading for the Imperial Palace to meet with Emperor Finn, that together they might set a trap for the uber-espers. A trap promising the only bait that might tempt the uber-espers into coming to the palace in person: a King and an Emperor. Both Douglas and Finn had agreed that the only real hope they had of defeating the thralls was to lure the uber-espers out of their hiding places, and face them in person. Only when those five monsters were dead, would the threat really be over.

  The meeting should have been just for Douglas and Finn, but Tel Markham insisted on accompanying Douglas to the palace, to watch the King's back. He, better than anyone else living, had good reason to know just how treacherous the Emperor could be. Douglas didn't object. Finn had been very clear in his instructions that Douglas should come alone, but Douglas wasn't about to start taking orders from Finn Durandal.

  Of course, there was always the chance that Tel intended to betray Douglas to Finn, for labyrinthine reasons of his own, but Douglas didn't think so. Hell hath no fury like an intriguer scorned.

  The two of them walked together through a deserted palace. All the guards and most of the servants were out in the city fighting, and the rest were hiding. The living had abandoned the dark and bloody corridors to the dead. They were everywhere now, even more than on Do
uglas's last visit. Rotting bodies hung from nooses, or steel garottes, and severed heads stood in rows on wooden stakes. In some places the old carpeting was so thickly and darkly stained with blood that the patterns had disappeared. The air was thick and hot and still, and rank with foulness. Douglas strode quickly along, not allowing himself to be distracted, while Tel scowled and muttered darkly under his breath. It took a long time to reach the court, where Finn Durandal sat in state on his throne, smiling down on his visitors from the raised dais. He nodded to Douglas, and to Tel.

  "So, here we are again. Well, well. I knew you'd bring someone, Douglas. So I thought I'd have a little company too."

  He indicated the dead man swinging slowly from a rope beside his throne. Mr. Sylvester hadn't been dead long. His eyes bulged from his dark congested face, and a purple tongue protruded from his mouth. His great body twisted slowly back and forth, while the rope creaked loudly. Finn smiled fondly, and gave the body a gentle push with one hand to keep it moving.

  "A peace offering, Douglas," he said lightly. "To show my sincerity. How sorry I am for all the nasty things he did, on my behalf. And he had outlived his usefulness, after all. I had a hell of a job getting him up there. Kicking and struggling and carrying on. And it wasn't easy to find a rope that would take his weight. The first two snapped. The things I do for you, Douglas, and you never appreciate them. But then, that's what started all this, wasn't it?"

  "What happened to the two other thrones?" said Douglas. "Tradition always had two more thrones, one for the Queen and one for the blessed Owen on his return."

  "Oh, I got rid of them long ago," said Finn. "Thou shalt have no other gods but me, and all that. Now, I was going to do something. What was it? Oh, yes."