Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

people who entered it. Perhaps you'll have better luck. And if not… I give you my word that if I can recover your remains, you will not go to waste."
    He grinned his disturbing grin again and stalked out of the Hall of the Fallen.
    The others trailed after him, muttering among themselves. Owen moved in close beside Giles.
    "Has he really been eating people all this time?"
    "Wouldn't surprise me. Wulf always had a unique sense of humor."
    "And all those bodies in the Hall of the Fallen; there's no sign of stasis fields there. Why haven't they decayed over the centuries?"
    Giles looked at him. "I told you. The Wolflings were immortal."
    He strode on, and Owen decided very firmly that he was going to change the subject. 'The more I hear about the Maze, the less I understand. The Wolfling said it killed people. Why is it so important to you that we go through it?"
    "The Maze is a test," said Giles. "If you pass the test, you live. Everything else is just hearsay. If you want its history. Moon could tell you more than I could."
    "I have never seen the Maze, but every Hadenman knows its story," said Moon. He didn't look round as Owen moved up beside him, but his voice was calm and even.
    "The history of the Maze is the history of my people. A long time ago, scientists came here, into the Darkvoid, in search of the Maze and the Wolfling who guarded it. One by one they passed through the Maze, and though many died and more went insane, the survivors emerged greater than they had been. These few scientists created the laboratories of Haden, founts of wonders and marvels beyond anything ever seen in the Empire. They worked at incredible speed, cold and perfect thoughts moving through their newly opened minds, and together they
    created the first Hadenmen. The laboratories worked day and night, first to produce clones by the thousand from the genetic templates of their creators, and then to turn those blank organic slates into augmented men, superior men.
    Hadenmen. Finally the scientists made themselves into Hadenmen and led their children out into the Empire in search of their destiny. And that was the first Crusade.
    "The Empire sought to use us at first, in its little wars and rivalries, but they quickly grew afraid of us. We were learning so much, of what we could and might do, working wonders and conquering all who stood against us. And everywhere we went we brought the gift of transformation. Of man into Hadenman.
    We were Gods of the Genetic Church, and people came to us in ever-increasing numbers. The Empire tried to stop them, but they could not stop what we had become. We were the ultimate destiny of Humanity, the merging of man and machine into a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. What the Maze had begun, we had completed. And so we began the second Crusade, to transform the whole Empire into what we had become.
    "The Empire fought back. They had been split into warring factions for so long that we considered them weak and easy prey, but in fear of us they put aside their differences, and we found ourselves facing a single, determined Empire, with all its power and resources. We were superior, but they were many, and in the end we fell before their might. The survivors fled back to Haden, in the dark, and lay themselves down to sleep the sleep of centuries in the Tomb of the Hadenmen. So that time might pass without them, and they might emerge into a future Empire more ready to accept their clear superiority. And those few of us left behind, denied the peace of sleep and sanctuary, made what lives we could in a human Empire, growing gradually weaker and more human all the while.

    Surviving, when it would have been so easy to lie down and die, so that one of us might yet find their way back to lost Haden and awaken the sleepers once again to glory and destiny. Our time has come round once more, and this time we shall fight on until we are successful, or we are all dead.
    "And all of this, because a few men walked through the Maze, and it changed them. Tell me, Deathstalkers: what do you think you will become, if you survive the Maze? What new destiny will you steer Humanity toward?"
    Owen looked at him silently for a long moment, and then fell back to rejoin his ancestor. "I don't think I've ever heard him say so much at one time since I met him. Coming home has made him positively chatty. You, on the other hand, haven't told me one damn thing you didn't have to. Why is it so important for us to go