"The past greets you, Slayer. This is how it was."
Stonehall slowly appeared before us. It had been a vast petrified city of stone rubble, scattered over six thickly forested hills, an invisible city lost in the suffocating grasp of the flowertrees. But Stonehall had changed as well.
The central hill had been rebuilt. A massive multi-towered palace of blinding white stone now covered the hill, a miniature city of high fortress walls and wide steep stone stairways leading up to a series of imposing, colonnaded stone halls topped by a skyline of elaborately carved cone-shaped domes. A host of colorful flags flew atop the domes, flickering in a light breeze. I could see restoration was underway on a nearby hill as well. It was unbelievable. Stonehall was indeed rising.
We docked at a great stone pier at the foot of the hill. Several other boats were there as well, and the port was swarming with workers, as busy as ants. The last time I had been here the Taka had been a primitive tribal society, living in the ruins of the past. Now they were rebuilding that past.
***
Deadeye walked us through a great hall with glittering walls of white marble and a mirror-like floor of pale coral stone and a ceiling lost in shadows. It was dark and cool inside and the walls were bare. We were like dwarfs in the house of the Gods. It was truly a monumental building. My heart was hammering, but it was not because of the scenery. I knew Moontouch was close. I could almost taste her.
"Slayer, please come with me," Deadeye said in Taka. "Redbird, Snowgirl, please wait here. We will not be long."
Redhawk shot me a glance but I decided to go with the program. Four Taka soldiers remained behind with Redhawk and Valkyrie as Deadeye led me through a doorway. And I suddenly realized that I had missed something important. I only had a quick glance, but one of the Taka warriors had inadvertently revealed something at his waist—a strangely shaped little device that looked very modern indeed.
Deadeye and I walked through a sunny courtyard with a wide pool of water flanked by young trees, into another doorway. We stepped into a little room with black curtains on the walls and a skylight shooting a blinding pool of sunlight onto a large, bare table of gleaming wood as smooth as silk.
Deadeye smiled at me nervously.
"Where is Moontouch?" I demanded.
"We await Starmouth, my brother. You must see Starmouth first."
"I don't want to see Starmouth! I want to see my wife and son! Take me to them, Deadeye!"
"No, Slayer. You must see Starmouth first. My Queen commands it."
I glared at him, furious, my blood pressure rising again. Who the hell was this Starmouth anyway, to come between me and my family? I had come all the way home, from ultimate exile, from not even knowing who I was, all the way to Stonehall, and still there were obstacles. Why was my wife not greeting me? The last time I had come home here, from Uldo, she had met me publicly in triumph, beaming over with pride and confidence. All of Stonehall had witnessed my homecoming, then. But now I was being shunted from room to room, forced to check in with strangers, as if I was some kind of dirty family secret. I was not happy about it at all.
The curtains stirred. He was there, silent in the shadows, watching us. Then he stepped forward into the sunlight. He was a giant, wearing a great cloak that parted to reveal massive, heavily muscled, hairy arms and a metallic tunic of silvery chain. His great head was as crudely chiselled as a cave dweller—a bony face with a sloping forehead, prominent brow ridges, deepset eyes glittering like obsidian, a wide flat nose with gaping nostrils, a large mouth, long tangled hair falling to his broad shoulders. Gildron! My heart leaped.
"Gildron!" I tried to remain calm. "You are Starmouth!"
Deadeye answered. "Yes, Slayer. Gildron is Starmouth. He is the defender of our past and the voice of our future. He is the hand of the Star."
Gildron didn't say a word. He just stood there, a massive presence, looking me over. Then he nodded, ever so slightly, and Deadeye left the room, back the way he had come, just like a ghost. Gildron looked into my eyes, but there was no need for words. I took the vidcard out of my fieldpak and placed it on the table and triggered it.
Tara appeared, a luminous life-sized angel in a shimmering field of light. She was still and calm, facing Gildron with her head held high, lovely soft hair touching her shoulders.
"Gildron," she breathed, and her voice was full of longing. "My lovely Gildron! How long has it been? I dream of you every night. I think of you every day, all day. I miss you so much, my darling Gildron. You know you have always been the only person I could stand to have by my side. I am so nervous now. The Deadheads are driving me crazy, Gildron. I long for your calm presence, for your warm, loving thoughts, for your unconditional, total love. I pray you are healthy and free, but somehow I feel you are.
"I need you, Gildron. I have sent Beta Three to tell you this. I want you to come back to me, with Beta Three. And you must bring the Star, if you have it. Bring me the Star, Gildron—that's very important. Bring me the Star. If you don't have it, then you must take it from whoever has it and bring it back to me. I need you, Gildron, but I need the Star, too. Without the Star, my world will die, and I will die.
"Come back to me, Gildron. I'm sorry I had to leave you. I love you, Gildron. Please come back to me. It's very important that you come back to me, and bring the Star. I don't want to die without you, Gildron. I love you. Please don't fail me!" She reached out one arm, right over to Gildron, and traced the sign of the Legion in the air. It was a blessing. Then she faded away and disappeared.
Poor old Gildron! He was awfully slow and he couldn't really talk much, but he always understood Tara. I didn't figure there was much else I had to say. He adored Tara. His entire life revolved around his beloved 'Cinta'. I didn't think he'd be able to resist Tara's plea. When she set out to do something, she didn't leave much room for resistance. I certainly couldn't resist her. I doubted Gildron could, either.
"Sit," he said, pointing sternly at the table. There were several heavy, backless wooden chairs. I drew one up to the table. Gildron chose another. He was so large he seemed to settle down in sections.
We faced each other over the table. He looked into my eyes but I couldn't tell what he was thinking.
"Tell me where she is," he rumbled. I almost jumped out of my skin. He had said it effortlessly, as if he had been talking all his life. When I knew Gildron, he had the vocabulary of a retarded pre-schooler.
"You…your Inter is excellent!" I stammered.
"It's a primitive method of communication," Gildron said, "but I find speech useful, here on Andrion. I never needed it with Cinta. Where is she?"
"She's on Dindabai."
"Dindabai. I thought as much. I was waiting for her. Why has she not come herself?"
"She is…exhausted. Mentally exhausted. She sent me, instead."
"Is she in any danger?" His eyes blazed with alarm.
"She is in considerable mental anguish," I said. "She may be dying. She needs you, Gildron. She needs your help. Only you can help her—she told me that herself."
He leaped to his feet, snarling like a beast, trembling, his great hands still on the table.
"You bring evil news!" He was enraged and bristling.
"Cinta needs you—now! That's the message. She needs you, and the Star. Without both, she will die."
He moaned, an awful cry of anguish, and his hands went up to his head. He crashed back into the chair. "The Star," he said. "The Star! It is the Star that is killing her, isn't it? Even from here, it wreaks its evil work in her mind. Speak the truth, Beta Three!"
"Of course it's the Star," I replied coldly. "Yes, it's the Star that's killing her. At first I thought it would help if I destroyed the Star. I was thinking about that for quite awhile. I planned to come here and destroy it. But now I'm not so sure. It's already in her mind, you see. If we kill it, she will continue doing what she's doing now—exhausting herself mentally, following its evil trail in her mind. Perhaps if we bring her the Star
itself, things will get better. Perhaps you could help her. You've always been so close to her."
"I curse the Star!" Gildron was looking around wildly. "I curse the day we encountered it. I wish you had shot it, that first day!"
"So do I."
"My dear companion!" He reached out two massive arms and seized my shoulders in a grip of iron. "It is so good to see you, after all this time! I am overjoyed to learn that my beloved Cinta is still alive and still loves me! She is everything to me. My happiest days were spent at her side, numb with her love, content just to be there. We were so perfect for each other; it was a miracle that we ever met. If I thought it would help her, I would tear the Star apart with my bare hands. But I think you are right. Perhaps the solution is for me to come to her, with the Star, just as she asks. And then I will continue as Starmouth. I will speak for the Star, and she can stop struggling. She is too fragile, your race is too fragile, to bear the weight of the Star. I will do it! I will sacrifice myself for her."
"Then you have the Star?"
"No, Beta Three. I do not have the Star. The Star has me."
"Is it alive?"
"The term is meaningless. It is…aware. It lives in everyone it touches. I was a fool, to give myself to it. I am a fool no longer—but it is too late now."
"Where is it?"
Gildron sighed. The curtains rustled. The Star floated out of the shadows up near the ceiling, glittering brilliantly, hanging in the air, completely silent, dazzling my eyes. It was just like a star and it was just as I remembered it. I glared at it, convulsed with hatred. Deadeye had taken away all my weapons.
"I would kill it if I could," I hissed. "It is the source of all the evil in my life. It's a Star from Hell. It will kill us all!"
"You are certainly correct," Gildron said, gazing at the Star without evident emotion. "It is temporarily useful, for everyone. But I believe it will ultimately destroy your civilization."
"I agree."
"We must kill it—eventually."
"Yes. Can it be killed?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I could kill it just by squeezing it in my hands. But could anyone have the mental strength to do that, when the Star holds the answers to all the secrets of the universe? When it can resolve any problem you may be facing? Can the time ever be right to do such a deed?"
I did not answer him. I stared at the Star. It was brilliant, cold, beautiful, and totally impersonal. Who could ever imagine the evil that could flow from such a beautiful vision? But I knew the evil was not in the Star—it was in us. The Star was completely neutral, just as Tara had said. It was humanity that was evil, not the Star.
***
The Great Hall was in the heart of the palace high atop the hill, lined with massive columns of shiny black marble; it was just like a forest of ancient trees. The hall was open to the day. Colorful silken awnings were floating lazily in the breeze outside, and lovely streaks of sunlight lanced down from the breezeways up near the ceiling. It was a hall of sunshine, and it was full of soldiers. All the crazy brave of Southmark's miraculous renaissance were there, dressed up like the dead, a bright rainbow of colors, and they were all armed for some prehistoric war, with spears and tridents and slingshots. Their shields lined the walls, and they all bore the sign of the Book.
Gildron and I strode boldly down the wide center aisle between the two great rows of tree-columns. Redhawk and Valkyrie followed close behind us, and a host of warriors fell silent as we passed. Gildron was a truly imposing figure in a billowing scarlet cloak. Redhawk and Valkyrie and I had scrubbed out all the mud and changed into Taka garb. We looked downright human again.
I had my E back. It felt good.
They were at the far end. Stormdawn, my son, sat on a massive, dark, austere throne hacked crudely from raw stone. It was the throne of the Immortal, the Golden Sword, or a damned good imitation. I had seen the original, in the Tomb of the Kings.
Moontouch stood at his side, slim, pale, cold, regal, magnificent. They were surrounded by their bodyguards. Deadeye was up there too, but I didn't even see him. The whole hall faded away in an instant and all I could see was my son, a slender young boy with long growing limbs and fine thin hair that reached to his shoulders, and pale brown skin and very fine features and big brown eyes and a haughty gaze, and Moontouch, standing there like a statue of ice crafted by the Gods. An angel fallen from Heaven, a slender, perfect angel with a waterfall of lovely shimmering black hair and limbs of tender velvet flesh, and faraway, slightly slanted eyes glittering with resolve, and pursed, determined lips. In my most fevered dreams I had never imagined, I had never remembered such incredible beauty. She took my breath away. She was almost supernatural.
We stopped before the throne.
My son stood up, arrogant and furious, fire in his eyes. He was holding a mace topped by the crown and skull of Southmark. It was all the power and glory Southmark had ever possessed.
"My mother asks me why my father abandoned us," he cried out boldly. "What am I to say, visitor?"
The hall was dead silent. Moontouch was frozen. I did not answer. I raised my E with one arm and snapped it out, presenting it—offering absolute loyalty, blood and honor. My life, for Southmark.
That's as far as it got. The mace went flying, my son came charging off the throne and leaped into my arms, whimpering, and Moontouch was right behind him, gasping, throwing herself at me unconditionally. The E bounced off the floor, forgotten, and my wife and son were right there in my arms, cheek to cheek, dancing in joy, feet not even touching the ground, just as it always should have been in any sane world, and I think all three of us were crying, and the Taka were cheering, but it didn't matter at all, to me. I was home. Home at last, from my lunatic galactic odyssey, with my lovely wife and beautiful son right in my arms, right where they should be, their limbs wrapped around mine, their hearts beating against mine, and Moontouch's intoxicating scent was once again with me. I vowed right then that I was never going to leave them again, not for anything. Not for the Legion, not for Tara, not for the Star—not for anything. They'd have to kill me first!
***
She took me into her life and it was almost as if I had never left. We lounged on pillows in a little garden in the palace, under a billowing canopy. Servant girls padded in and out silently, bringing whatever we needed. I fell in love all over again, with limpid eyes and satin skin, a cascade of silken black hair hissing over my fevered skin like something alive. She laughed and bit into my neck with tiny white teeth. I stripped her naked and we tore at each other like jungle cats, frantic to make up for our years apart. She was an exquisite Goddess of beauty, a sexual sorceress, touching my burning flesh with perfumed lips, covering me with tongue tracks, butterfly kisses, a pounding heart and the room spinning around me.
At night, when our lust was sated, our son Stormdawn dived into the pillows with us. The three of us slept together, wrapped in each other's arms. Once it rained, and a fine mist filled the air, and my wife and son stirred, and held me tighter. I didn't think I had ever been so happy. It was like a wonderful dream. It was such a magical, unbelievable time that I was terrified it might end, that I might suddenly wake up and discover that it was all a lie.
"I knew you would return," she whispered in my ear. "You cannot escape me. It does not matter how far you travel, or how long you are away. You are destined to return to me. It is written in the dust of the dead." She was a sorceress. I knew she could see the future, but I never dared ask what she saw.
"I'm not going to leave you again, Moontouch," I said. "This is my home now. I have no intention of leaving."
She looked away, sadly. She did not believe me. How could I possibly leave her? She was the most beautiful creature in the galaxy and she loved me and I loved her. Was I insane, to leave her? Never! I gently pulled her face to mine, and we kissed. The scent of crushed flowers, in a soft night. Her heart, beating against mine. My happiness was complete.
***
It was a pale child
's face, with big brown eyes and silky black hair and lips like ripe cherries. She blinked, looking right into my eyes, silent, pleading. At first that was all I could see, just her face. Then she suddenly thrust out one slim arm, the hand open, slender fingers trembling, right in my face. Her eyes were blazing.
I awoke in a panic, my heart hammering. Priestess! Again, again, again—when would it end? I sat up, sweating. It was dark and quiet. Moontouch and Stormdawn were asleep at my side; a few candles were softly haloed in the gloom. All was well with the world.
But all was not well with the world, at all.
Priestess was back with me, again. Haunting me. What did she want? What could I do for her, for the dead? Both Redhawk and Tara had exhausted all available Legion records, scanning for every possible combination of physical characteristics that might lead to Beta Nine or our other missing squadies. They found no trace of them. Priestess had surely died on Uldo, along with the rest of the squad—Snow Leopard, Psycho, Scrapper and Twister—killed by the O's, or maybe by the Systies, or maybe even by ConFree. Just as it said in the Book of the Dead. It didn't matter much how they died, but it appeared certain they were dead.
Dead, and haunting me. I had loved Priestess. I still loved Priestess. But she was gone now. Why should she continue to haunt me? 'Thinker, I want to live through this,' she had said, as the massive doors of the Mound screeched open. 'Then we live together, forever.'
Forever. I shuddered. I was an immortal. Was she to haunt me forever?
I got up and walked over to the terrace. It was still and cool. Stonehall was a magical, marble city perched on a hill in a black forest overlooking a canal that looked like molten mercury, snaking through the dark. The sky was full of stars and Andrion's single moon burned above like a silver chariot. We had gazed at that moon together, Priestess and I, and it seemed like a million years ago.
It isn't fair, I thought. I have found happiness, at last, but I am still haunted by phantoms from the past. What does she want from me? What do you want, Priestess? Why do you reach out for me? I cannot help you from beyond the grave.
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