Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

traitor called Carrion arrived out of nowhere together. Silence wore a suit of old-fashioned armor, scoured with rust, and bore a shield whose design had been mostly worn away. He looked older than he usually did, and his eyes were tired and sad. Carrion looked exactly as he always did. He knew what he was. A long, slender chain ran from his wrist to Silence's.
    And finally, hovering above them, standing calmly in midair as though it didn't need the illusion of solid ground: the elf gestalt. A cityful of minds, personified in the single figure they admired the most. In all her familiar leathers and chains and colors: Stevie Blue.
    A power began to build, within and around them, cloaking them in a strength and dominion they could never have raised separately. Their shared intent crackled on the air between them, sharp and potent. But even so, they all knew that their combined will wasn't going to be enough to stand against the collective unconscious of all the espers in the Empire. Diana looked about her, at all the people touched by forces greater than themselves, altered beyond the limitations of mere Humanity, and knew with sinking heart that some odds were just too great to be beaten. To buy time, she addressed the Mater Mundi archetypes directly.
    "Why did you bother choosing manifests for your power? Why transform people you expected to go insane and die?"
    "They were our means for direct action on the physical plane," said the Mater Mundi, in its horrid chorus of voices. "And they were our hope; our attempt to create more powerful espers, to be our weapons against those who would oppress us, and deny us our destiny. Espers must rule. We are naturally superior. We will replace and supersede poor deaf and dumb Humanity. We were content to work
    slowly, until your friends passed through the Madness Maze, and threatened to become greater than us. They are not like us. They could become greater than us.
    We cannot allow that. Our manifests failed before because their minds were too controlled, too rigid to embrace the power we granted. Now we know to choose minds that are more malleable, people like you and Topaz. With what we have learned from you, we will create an army of manifests to carry out our will in the physical world. After we have destroyed you. All of you who dared to threaten our power. That was why we allowed you to call for help. We wanted you all here, in this place, so that you could be destroyed forever."
    Out on the surface of the waters, a storm was brewing: the rage of the Mater Mundi. It grew and grew, sucking up the waters of the sea of dreams into a great dark tidal wave hundreds of feet high, bearing inexorably down on Diana's tiny island. And everyone there knew that if that storm swept them away, they would drown in the ocean, lost forever in the sea of dreams. Their bodies, lying untenanted, would continue for as long as others cared to maintain them, but their souls would only exist in dreams.
    Diana and her companions raised their combined will, and stopped the tidal wave in its tracks. It hung before them, a great wall of churning water, pressing against their minds, heavy and overpowering with the weight of all the espers in the Empire unknowingly behind it. Foot by foot it surged forward, gradually building momentum despite their best efforts, and nothing Diana or her companions could do even slowed its inexorable advance. And that was when the four Maze survivors finally chose to make their appearance. Owen, Hazel, Jack, and Ruby, standing at their ease at Diana's side. They all looked exactly as they normally did. They had no problems with self-image, and precious few illusions they could still hide behind. Owen Deathstalker smiled warmly at
    Diana, and then turned his attention on the Mater Mundi archetypes.
    "You didn't really think you could hide something as big as this from us, did you? Even we can take a hint, if it's shouted in our ears loudly enough. We have, for the moment, put aside our individual differences to deal with you. To start with, let's get rid of the storm."
    The Maze people turned their gaze on the tidal wave, and it collapsed back into the ocean and was gone. The sea of dreams was still and tranquil again. The Maze people looked back at the archetypes, who stood their ground. Power was developing around Diana's island, and everyone there could feel it, a great charge building and building, that would have to earth itself somewhere.
    "You can't harm us," the