Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

experience. I'm not even sure it was human. Could it really have been the Mater Mundi?"
    Topaz shrugged uncomfortably. "I've never been religious. Still, I saw everything you did. She might be crazy, but something manifested through her.
    Its mark is all over her mind, even now. The Mater Mundi's as good an answer as any. Whoever or whatever that might be. You're right, the leaders have to see her. If only so we can be sure of controlling her. God knows how much damage she could do if we let her run loose."
    "Like I did," said Mary.
    "That's over now. You're yourself again."
    "Maybe. Do you think I don't know that you're still watching over me for the Council? Not everyone's convinced my deprogramming took."
    "I'm with you because I choose to be," said Topaz. "Besides, you still have a lot of enemies here in Mistport. Everyone lost somebody to the esper plague."
    "I'll never kill again," said Mary. "I'll kill myself first."
    "I know," said Topaz.
    "Poor Jenny. She's been through so much."
    "Haven't we all."
    Owen Deathstalker walked alone through the packed streets of the Merchants
    Quarter, scowling and seething. People passing took one look at his face and gave him plenty of room. Some even crossed to the other side of the street, just in case. Street vendors and stall holders cried their wares in a variety of colorful ways, but Owen paid them no notice. He was working his way into a world-class bad temper, and he didn't care who knew it. His mood wasn't helped by the fact that he wasn't very good at following directions. It wasn't that he was lost, exactly; he just didn't always know where he was. He'd only been this way once before, and that was with Hazel leading the way, and he hadn't paid much attention at the time. Luckily Ozymandius remembered the way.
    Owen strode on through the Quarter, kicking at the thick snow and concentrating fiercely on where he was going so he wouldn't have to think about Hazel, alone with John Silver. He had no right to be jealous, as Hazel no doubt would have been happy to tell him, but still… he loved her, in his way, and would no matter what she thought of him. If she ever thought of him. Owen sighed and pressed on, and eventually he ended up in front of the seedy ramshackle building that housed the Abraxus Information Center. Abraxus knew everything that was going on in Mistport, sometimes even before the people concerned knew it. Abraxus could answer all your questions, soothe your worries or confirm your worst nightmares, for the right price.
    It wasn't much to look at. Abraxus had the first floor over a family bakery.
    There was no sign advertising its presence. Everyone knew where Abraxus was. The last time Owen had been here he'd learned many things, some useful, some disturbing. Among other things, Abraxus had told him how he would die.
    I see you, Deathstalker. Destiny has you in its clutches, struggle how you may.
    You will tumble an Empire, see the end of everything you ever believed in, and
    you'll do it all for a love you'll never know. And when it's over, you'll die alone, far from friends and succor.
    Owen shuddered suddenly, his hackles rising as the words whispered in his head again. Even the best precogs were wrong as often as they were right, or they'd have been running the Empire by now, but even so he found the prophecy disturbing. No hints, no riddles, no hidden meanings—just a blunt description of his future and his death. He liked to think he would press on anyway, doing what he knew to be right and damn the consequences, but… he had to talk to Abraxus again. A lot had happened since his last trip to Mistworld, not least his passing through the Madness Maze. That had to change things. In many ways he was a completely new person now.
    "Hell," he said finally. "Everyone knows you can't trust precogs."
    "So whom do you trust?" said Ozymandius in his ear.
    "I wish you'd stop talking to me. You know very well you're dead."
    "So maybe I'm haunting you. Answer the question. Whom do you trust these days?
    Hazel threw you out to be with Silver, Young Jack Random may or may not be who he says he is, and Jenny Psycho is living in a different reality from the rest of us. Whom can you trust?"
    "Not you, anyway. I trust the real Jack Random to do what's best for the rebellion. I trust Ruby to back him up right down the line, as long as there's the promise of plenty of loot. I trust Giles to uphold the Deathstalker name.
    And I trust Hazel to do the right thing, in