Finlay stormed forward, heading for the huge steel doors that were the only entrance to the command-center bunker. Disrupters built into the bunker walls opened up, but Julian deflected the beams with his esp until rebel sharpshooters had blown the guns out of their emplacements. And then they were all at the door, and Evangeline punched in the entry codes that the underground leaders had provided. Nothing happened. Evangeline tried again, hitting each number carefully, but the door remained stubbornly closed. Finlay could hear the crowd growing restive behind them.
“Typical,” he said briskly. “Have to do everything ourselves. Julian, get this door open.”
“I’m on it,” said Julian. He concentrated, ignoring the familiar headache growing behind his temples, and hit the door with a psychokinetic hammer blow that punched the door right out of its supports and back into the bunker. The rebels cheered, and Finlay led the way through the opening. He hadn’t got far before he came to a sudden halt. Evangeline and Julian, close behind, almost crashed into him. Before them, guarding the entry corridor with a drawn sword, stood a single figure in an anonymous tunic, with a featureless black-steel helm covering his head. A familiar sight to anyone who’d ever watched the fights in the Arenas. It was the undefeated champion himself, the Masked Gladiator.
“No,” said Finlay. “No. Not you . . .”
“Of course it’s me,” said the calm voice behind the helm. “I’ve always been loyal to the Iron Throne, come what may. Which means you have to get past me to get any farther. And one man in the right place can stop an army if he’s good enough. And the Masked Gladiator has never been defeated.”
“Don’t do this,” said Finlay. “I don’t want to have to fight you.”
“They shall not pass,” said the Masked Gladiator. “No exceptions. Not even you, Finlay.”
“The hell you say,” said Julian. He stepped forward, and his face contorted with an anger so overwhelming he was almost unrecognizable. “I’ve waited a long time for this, you bastard. You killed my brother, Auric Skye!”
“I’ve killed a lot of people,” said the voice behind the featureless helm. “I don’t remember names anymore.”
“I remember,” said Julian Skye, and he lashed out with his mind. An irresistible force hit the Masked Gladiator like a hammer, smashing him off his feet. He hung in midair, feet kicking helplessly above the ground, and blood flew from every joint in his armor, as the body within was crushed by a cold, vengeful force. He didn’t cry out, but eventually he stopped convulsing, and Julian dropped him. He hit the floor hard and lay still. Blood pooled around him. Julian leaned over him, breathing heavily. Blood was running thickly from one of his nostrils. He spit on the featureless helmet.
“That was for you, Auric.”
He started forward into the command center, and the rebels poured after him, cheering the man who’d beaten the undefeated Masked Gladiator. Toby and Flynn hurried after them on foot. None of them even noticed Finlay and Evangeline kneel beside the fallen man. Finlay waited till the last of the rebels had passed by, and then gently removed the dying man’s helmet, revealing the blood-smeared face of Georg McCrackin, the original Masked Gladiator. The man who’d taught Finlay everything he knew, and then allowed him to replace him in the Arena. Georg tried to smile up at Finlay and Evangeline, but his teeth were red with his own blood.
“Now we’ll never know . . . whether you could have beaten me, Finlay. Should never have expected a fair chance from an esper.”
“I killed his brother,” said Finlay. “I’m so sorry, Georg. I never meant . . . Why did you go back to the Arena? I thought you retired.”
“Someone had to be the Masked Gladiator after you left, and there wasn’t anyone ready to take your place.” Georg swallowed hard, and his voice cleared a little. “Besides, I wanted to see if I still had what it took. To be the best again. I was doing well, too, until this nonsense started, and the Empress herself called me here, to defend the command center.” He coughed harshly, and blood welled from his mouth and ran down his chin. “Damn. I’m hurt bad, Finlay. That esper bastard really screwed me up.” He tried to smile at Finlay again, and blood leaked out the corners of his mouth. “So you’re a rebel now, Finlay. I was surprised when I heard. I never understood politics. Not for me, though. The Empire’s been good to me. Can’t say I’m sorry it’s all over. Shouldn’t think there’d be anyplace for the likes of me in what’s to come. Better to go out with some dignity.”
He stopped, as though considering what to say next. Finlay waited, and only after a moment realized that Georg McCrackin was dead. Finlay closed the man’s eyes and got to his feet. Evangeline stood up with him and put a comforting hand on his arm. He didn’t notice. He was still looking down at the dead man.
“Julian doesn’t need to know,” he said finally. “Let him think he killed his brother’s killer. It’s simpler, that way.”
“For the moment,” said Evangeline. “But what happens if he ever finds out the truth? That you were his brother’s killer, and he killed an innocent man?”
“No one’s innocent anymore,” said Finlay. “And what’s one more secret, to the likes of us?”
He strode off into the depths of the command center, following the distant sounds of combat and the screams of the dying, not looking to see whether Evangeline was following him.
All across the planet of Golgotha, in towns and cities and starports, the rebels moved unstoppably forward, driving back the Imperial forces on all fronts. Their one trump card, the huge war machines, now stood dead and lifeless, empty metal shells with nothing to guide them. The Imperial troops looked defeat in the face, and reacted in the only way they knew how. They broke out the biggest weapons they had, and opened fire on everyone who wasn’t them. They cut down rebels and civilians alike, and flooded the streets with blood. They took crowds of women and children hostage, used them as human shields, and threatened to execute them in hatches of ten if the rebels didn’t back off. They blew up important installations and power plants and hospitals rather than let the rebels take them. They destroyed whole towns and their populations in order to save them. Such widespread savagery and slaughter had been expected, and theoretically allowed for, but in practice the sheer coldbloodedness of it shocked the rebels to their souls, even after all they’d seen on Virimonde. All over the world the rebel advances slowed and stopped, confronted by an evil too great for their simple tactics. The rebels were willing to give their own lives for victory, but faced with the responsibility for mass slaughter of civilians, they hesitated, and were lost. The rebellion faltered, and suddenly everything seemed in the balance again.
And that was when the Mater Mundi manifested again, all across the planet. Our Mother of All Souls, the uber-esper, slammed into every esper’s mind simultaneously, hundreds of thousands of espers suddenly transformed and transfigured into a whole new order of being. Linked into one great massmind, they acted as one, the psistorms flashed through towns and cities all over Golgotha, sweeping away the Imperial troops while not touching the rebels or civilians, Polters and pyros destroyed Imperial buildings and refuges, torched barracks and tore down barricades, unstoppable avatars of destruction. Telepathic storms swept through the troops, jumping from mind to mind, washing away sanity and memories and leaving nothing behind. In other places, esper-driven nightmares ran riot through helpless minds, and hardened soldiers tore out their own eyes rather than see what they were being shown. Other troops gunned down their fellows, then turned their guns on themselves.
And as quickly as that the tide turned again, and resistance to the rebel forces was swept away. Mater Mundi looked upon her work and saw it to be good, and withdrew herself from the thousands of esper minds. The rebel forces mopped up the mess she’d left behind and took control of the towns and cities, whose populations praised them as saviors. The war on the surface was over.
But the Mater Mundi wasn’t finished yet. Manifesting through an old friend, Jenny Psycho, the Mater Mundi reached out a
nd snagged two more useful souls, and teleported all three of them to where they could do the most good. They disappeared silently, air rushing in to fill the space where they’d been, and in the general chaos no one even noticed they’d gone. Satisfied that she’d done all that was necessary, the Mater Mundi shut herself down until she might be needed again.
In Lionstone’s Court, Hell had taken root and bloomed like a dark and poisonous flower. There were flames everywhere, their golden and scarlet light sometimes all the illumination there was against the lowering dark. The air was thick with the stench of sulfur, spilled blood, and cooked human flesh. Captured rebels had been impaled on rough wooden stakes or hung on traceries of metal thorns that slowly pulled them apart. Corpses of dead advisors hung from chains. Ravens ate their eyes and tore at their faces, and spoke shrilly in human voices. It had become dangerous to fail the Empress in anything now. Bloodred angels with burning wings stood in ranks behind the Iron Throne, bearing monofilament swords. Dishonorable weapons, but Lionstone was past caring about such niceties.
Captain Silence, Investigator Frost, and Security Officer Stelmach made their way cautiously through the crimson-tinged mists of Hell, carefully skirting the yellow sulfur fogs that belched up out of the glowing ash pits. They stuck close together, tried not to look around too much, and headed for Lionstone’s spotlit Throne by the most direct route. Small bones crunched under their boots from time to time. They looked like they came from birds or animals. Or possibly small children. Some of them still had tatters of flesh and skin attached. Sometimes the people hanging from chains or transfixed on steel-bladed trees cried out to them as they passed, begging for help or death or just a little water. Silence and Frost stared straight ahead, and did not answer. They knew there was nothing they could do. Nothing they’d be allowed to do. Stelmach was crying quietly, sniffing back tears.
They’d been called back to Golgotha, and then down to the Imperial Palace, on direct orders from the Empress herself, using top emergency codes only ever to be used when the Throne itself was endangered. So of course they came, ignoring the rebels and their battles, ignoring cries for help from beleagured Imperial forces, driven by the urgency of their summons. They didn’t know yet that the war on the surface had been lost, but it wouldn’t have surprised them. They’d seen the live broadcasts from Virimonde, and even the Investigator had been shocked. Silence had said only a madwoman could have given such orders, and neither Frost nor Stelmach had reproached him. They discussed the rebellion on their way back to Golgotha, but their loyalty was never in doubt, despite all that had happened. They were sworn to the Iron Throne, and their Empress, and you didn’t betray your honor just because things were going badly. Sometimes, when things were going really badly, all you had left was your honor.
And so they walked through Hell, through the heat and the mists and the suffering of the damned. There were no guards to accompany them, this time. Silence wondered if this was meant as a mark of trust, or if Lionstone was just short of guards. It didn’t matter. They were here now, called back from disgrace, their ship and crew’s honor restored. Silence had been hoping to use this opportunity to talk a little cautious sense into Lionstone. But having seen the Court’s current incarnation, he wasn’t sure that was possible anymore. The Court was an extension of the Empress’s mind, and it seemed both had gone to Hell.
Finally they came to the Iron Throne. Jets of flame shot high up into the air, like fountains of fire, eerily silent, casting a crimson satanic aspect over Lionstone and her Throne. The maids clustered together at her feet, alert and snarling, metal claws flexing from under their fingernails, staring hungrily with their artificial eyes at the newcomers before the Throne. The burning angels stood silently, swords at the ready. Lionstone should have looked utterly safe and secure, but she didn’t. She sat forward, right on the edge of her seat, staring grimly at the viewscreen floating before her, studying reports from the few Imperial-controlled channels still on the air, watching helplessly as her Empire fell apart around her. Silence and Frost and Stelmach came to a halt before the Iron Throne, and bowed deeply to her, and she acknowledged them with a mere flap of her hand. When she finally deigned to turn and look at them, her eyes were wide and staring, and her smile was strangely fixed, as though she’d forgotten just how one did such a thing.
“So, you’re finally here. My Captain, my Investigator, my Security Officer. Sworn to me, to death and beyond. Traitors!”
“No, Your Majesty,” Silence said quickly. “We are loyal to you. We always have been.”
“Then why did you keep secrets from me? Why did you try and hide what you’ve become? Why didn’t you tell me about the powers you gained on the Wolfling World?”
Silence and Frost looked at each other, and then at Stelmach, who shook his head. He hadn’t told. Silence looked back at Lionstone, and kept his voice even and calm. “For a long time we didn’t understand what was happening to us. It seems our time in the Madness Maze, brief though it was, was enough to change us on levels we still don’t fully comprehend. We have done our best to serve you faithfully while we struggled for some kind of control over our new . . . abilities.”
“And what about you, Security Officer?” said Lionstone. “I gave you specific orders to watch these two and report on them!”
“I have tried to do my duty as I saw best,” said Stelmach. His face was deathly pale, and his hands were shaking, but his gaze and his voice were unflinching. “It was not a simple matter. There were . . . ambiguities to the situation.”
“Words,” said Lionstone, leaning back on her Throne. Her cold eyes moved back and forth across the three of them. “Nothing but empty words. It’s too late for such evasiveness now. I won’t have it. The barbarians are pounding on the gates of Empire. I need weapons to hold them back while I plan how to undo my reverses. You’re going to be those weapons. Tell me about your powers. Tell me everything. Or die here at my feet.”
Just for a moment, Silence considered defying her. She had no real power over them anymore. All the armed guards in her Court couldn’t compel him or Frost to do a single damn thing they didn’t want to. Not after everything they’d become. But the moment passed, as he’d known it would. She was his Empress. He and Frost had kept their powers to themselves out of a very real fear of ending up as lab rats. Possibly even vivisected lab rats. But the time for such weakness was past. He could recognize fate when it came knocking on his window. So he told the Empress, as clearly as he could, of the strange strengths and abilities and intuitions that he and Frost had manifested since their time on lost Haden, also known as the Wolfling World.
It took a while, not least because Lionstone kept interrupting, pressing him for details and explanations he didn’t always have. As he spoke, two new figures appeared in the Court, breasting the sulfurous mists on their way to the Throne. First came Valentine Wolfe, the dandy in black with the long white face. He stopped a respectful distance away, quite happy to watch and listen while Silence spoke. His crimson mouth was stretched in its usual constant smile, and his heavily mascaraed eyes were fever-bright from the impact of the dozen drugs roaring through his veins. Valentine wasn’t used to losing, and his recent reverses had stunned him. His response had been to amplify his whirling thoughts with stimulant after stimulant, trying to force his mind to come up with answers to his problems. The end result had been something of a chemical stalemate, where his thoughts crashed emptily together, canceling each other out. And so he’d come to Court; not just for his own safety, but because that was in the end where all the real decisions of Empire were made. Whatever happened here, he was confident he’d find some way to turn it to is advantage. He always did.
He had hoped to call on favors from his previous dalliance with the underground, but it hadn’t taken him long to discover that the esper leaders had promised his head to Finlay Campbell, in return for the Campbell’s services. You couldn’t trust anyone these days. Still, it wasn’t a complete loss. Finlay might ye
t die during the rebellion, with a little help, and afterward Valentine was confident he’d find some way to bargain himself back into the underground’s good graces. Or, if things somehow went the other way, and Lionstone yet pulled off some miraculous victory, or more likely some form of compromise with the rebels, she would need someone to speak for her to the underground. Someone with good connections. And who better than the widely experienced Valentine Wolfe?
He laughed quietly, quite at home in Hell, and stood patiently before the Iron Throne, winking at the snarling maids. His body twitched and seethed with possibilities, his thoughts running a mile a second in all directions at once. So he stood still and said nothing. Let others speak. He would listen. He’d find a way to profit. He always did. And then let his enemies beware.
The second figure to appear was, of course, the Lord High Dram, Consort and Widowmaker. He looked rather battered around the edges. There were tears and scorch marks on his clothes, and blood, too, some of it his. He’d been driven from the surface fighting by one rebel victory after another. When the war machines stalled and the Mater Mundi manifested, Dram knew a lost cause when he saw one. He deserted his men, disguised himself, and made his way back to Court. He felt angry rather than guilty. Lionstone kept expecting him to do things that only the original Dram, with all his experience, could have pulled off. While he was only a clone, barely finished, trying to learn on the run and stay alive while men died all around him. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know how to cope with overwhelming odds and strange new weapons and espers with the powers of gods. Even the original Dram had never had to face a ubiquitous Mater Mundi. And so he ran away and came home to Lionstone, like a child beaten by bullies at school, hoping not to be beaten again for losing.
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