Deathstalker 01 - Deathstalker

by the sphere. He made a small adjustment to the control on his wrist, and the Judge grunted loudly as though someone had hit him. His hair grew longer and thick strands of white appeared in it. Heavy lines dug deeply into his face. His frame shrank subtly, and his hands withered into claws. He moaned with pain as arthritis filled his joints. Lionstone raised a hand, and the aging stopped.

    Within the sphere, the equivalent of forty years had passed in a few moments.
    "Talk to us, Nicholas. This is the last chance we can offer you. Are you really willing to die to protect creatures who aren't even human?"
    Judge Nicholas Wesley gave her a smile that had as much of the skull as humor in it. "The lowest clone is more human than you, Lionstone."
    The Empress gestured angrily, and time roared through the sphere like sands rushing through an hourglass. The Judge grew withered and frail. His hair fell out and his skin mottled. A skull replaced his face, as bones pushed out against the tightening skin, and still he had nothing to say. Time passed. The Judge died and his body decayed, and then there was nothing left in the sphere but his torn robes and a few bones crumbling into dust. The guard collapsed the stasis field and the sphere disappeared. The Judge's robes dropped into the muddy waters and sank from sight.
    *
    Out in the antechamber. Captain Silence and Investigator Frost sat alone, in chains, inside a force screen. The field shimmered on the edges of their vision whichever way they looked, so that the antechamber had an unreal, ghostly look to them. Silence wasn't fooled. The danger they were in was all too real. He'd lost his ship and allowed the Deathstalker outlaw to escape. He should have died honorably at his post as his ship went down. His Clan would have mourned his name, and it would all have been over. But the Investigator had insisted on saving him for her own inscrutable reasons. And so here he was, secured at the ankles, wrists and throat with enough chains to hold a dozen men, waiting to see which interesting and especially painful death the Empress had in mind for him.

    Officially he was entitled to a Court Martial before a board of his peers and
    fellow officers, but the Empress outranked them all when she chose to, so she had first claim on him. Besides, the best he could have hoped from a court martial would have been a quick death. Silence rattled his chains briefly and sniffed. Shoddy workmanship, but still more than enough to hold him even without the force screen. He wasn't going anywhere. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere the Empress couldn't find him. Besides, he wouldn't have wanted to live as an outlaw anyway—always on the run, looking back over your shoulder to see if they were gaining on you. No peace, no chance for happiness… or honor.
    Silence sighed heavily, not for the first time, and looked at the Investigator sitting beside him. Their captors had taken special pains with her bonds, loading her down with thick steel chains until a normal person would have collapsed under the weight of them. Frost ignored them, sitting proud and erect on the wooden bench as though it was her own idea to be there. The force screen was mainly for her. She was an Investigator, after all, and no one was taking any chances.
    Two armed guards stood before the closed double doors, waiting for the call to bring the prisoners in. They looked large and tough and extremely competent.
    Silence would have doubted his chances against them even without the chains and with a sword in one hand and a grenade in the other. He sighed again and rattled his chains mournfully.
    "I wish you'd stop doing that," said Frost.
    "Sorry. Not much else to do."
    "They'll let us out of the screen soon."
    " That won't make any difference, Investigator. We're not going anywhere."
    "You mustn't give up, Captain. There are always options."
    Silence looked at her. "Is that why you rescued me from the bridge of the
    Darkwind?"
    "Of course, Captain."
    "Thanks a whole bunch. But I forgive you. Frost. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time."
    Frost stirred, and her chains rattled briefly. The armed guards looked at her thoughtfully. "I was just doing my duty, Captain."
    "Does that mean you wouldn't try to escape now, if you could?
    "Of course I would, Captain. I'm loyal, but I'm not stupid. We must keep our eyes open and our wits about us. There are always options."
    And then the double doors swung open a short way, and the two