Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

couldn't allow that. But a part of him had always wondered what he might have become, if only he'd gone all the way through, to the heart. To the center of the mysteries.
    Owen looked at the Madness Maze, and thought of all the amazing things he'd done in his short, legendary life. He'd achieved many things, performed wonders, followed where his duty and his honor had led him, but he couldn't honestly say any of it had made him happy. Despite all his wishes and convictions, he'd been
    forced to put aside his old scholarly self and become the warrior he'd never wanted to be. He'd seen good friends die, along with his enemies, to bring about a questionable victory and an Empire he no longer recognized or felt a part of.
    The Maze had changed his life forever, and made him so much more than he was, but he still didn't know whether to praise or damn it.
    Hazel scowled at the Maze, her hand resting again on the gun at her hip. She didn't remember much about her last trip through the Maze, at least partly through her own wishes, but she was sure the damned thing had its own agenda, and not necessarily one she would agree with. She'd been many things in her life, from clonelegger and pirate to rebel and official hero, and she hated to think any of them had been anyone's idea but her own. If she went into the Maze again, what new changes might it work in her? What might she become?
    Carrion looked at the Madness Maze, and perhaps saw more than the others, because he had lived so long with the Ashrai in the metallic forest. He saw strange energies spiraling endlessly through the steel pathways, and potentials and possibilities that both intrigued and frightened him. He welcomed these feelings, because it had been so long since he'd felt much of anything.
    "Well?" said the Wolfling finally. "You've come all this way. Have none of you anything to say?"
    "If the… Device is in the Maze, then we have to go after it," said Carrion. "But you heard the Deathstalker. We could just be trading one threat for another."
    "If the baby becomes a menace, then I'll destroy it," said Silence. "But not until I've made use of it."
    "John; you can't," said Carrion. "He's just a baby. He's innocent."
    "It killed billions of people!"
    "He doesn't know that."
    "Nothing's ever simple, is it?" said Owen. "I remember the first time I came here. I remember walking the Madness Maze to its heart, and finding the baby waiting there, safely sleeping. I think I knew even then that my life was never going to make sense. That there were greater powers than I could ever hope to understand at work in the universe. And this was where the lies started too. My ancestor Giles, the original Deathstalker, told me the baby was his clone. It didn't occur to me till much later that cloning didn't exist in his time. He also told me the Madness Maze was created by the Wolflings, though soon after he changed his tune and said the Maze was an alien artifact. That was his first slip, the first thing that made me distrust him. But then, I never did believe in legends. Especially when I became one. And I've studied far too much history to believe in happy endings. But I still believe one man of goodwill can make a difference, if he stands at the right place at the right time, and will not back down or look away."
    "Giles believed that once," said the Wolfling. "Unfortunately, he decided he wanted to be more than just a hero, and Warrior Prime. The time has come for me to tell you the truth; the true history of Giles Deathstalker and his infant son and the Madness Maze."
    *
    This is the tale the Wolfling told.

    More than nine hundred years ago, when things were very different, and Giles was an honored hero loved and respected by all, he betrayed his wife and his Family and his Emperor, to have an affair with the Empress Hermione. Hermione became pregnant, her first and only child. Ulric was delighted at the pregnancy, and there were Empire-wide celebrations over the birth of a son and heir to the
    Empire. Only Giles and Hermione knew that the official genetest was a fake; that the newborn babe was a bastard and a traitor's get. Even now, I don't know whether Giles really loved her. If he ever loved her. Or whether he quite deliberately set out to sire a child who would give Clan Deathstalker a claim to the Iron Throne. I'd hate to think his affair with Hermione was just a means to an end, but Giles always was ambitious. Perhaps the plan was to wait until Ulric II met his