Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

single fire control panel, so she could operate it all herself. Outside, in the endless night of the Darkvoid, she could feel more and more of the Recreated becoming aware of her, slowly realizing that she stood between them and their prey. Huge eyes turned in her direction. Mile-long tentacles reached across space. Vast ships orientated on the Sunstrider. Hazel whooped once with savage joy, meshed her mind with the fire controls, and opened up with everything she had.

    Owen walked back into the Madness Maze, and it felt like coming home. He strode quickly between the shining, shimmering walls, guided by instinct as much as memory. He didn't normally remember much about his first trip through the Maze, and now he knew why. It was simply too intense, too overwhelming an experience for the mind to tolerate for long. It had to be forgotten, for the mind to be able to cope with everyday things. He slowed his pace, not hurrying anymore, for Time moved differently in the Maze. A second and a year were the same thing, here. He glanced back, once, and wasn't surprised to find Silence and Carrion weren't with him anymore, though they'd all entered the Maze together. They had their own ways to go, their own destinations, their own destinies to follow.
    Owen drifted through the shining passageways, summoned by a voice he almost recognized. It was bitter cold in the Maze, but he had been tempered in fires too harsh for mere temperatures to ever really bother him again. Static sparked
    on the air here and there, falling like ionized snowflakes, crawling up and down the shining walls. Owen thought he could hear breathing, slow and steady and gigantic, gusting around him. Underneath his feet he could feel a slow, rhythmic tremor, like the beating of a massive heart far below. He felt watched, known, cared for. Not for the first time, Owen wondered if the Madness Maze was actually alive; some form of existence far beyond anything he could hope to recognize or understand.
    Smells and scents came and went around him. Harsh vinegar and burning leaves.
    Oiled metal, and old lemon, sharp on his tongue. Rich earth and mulch, and the aroma of green growing things; a memory of lost Virimonde. There was a chattering of metal birds, and a baby crying, and the tolling of a cracked iron bell in a church at midnight. It felt like Christmas, the world calm and quiet under a blessing of snow. Owen threaded his way through the Maze, heading always toward the center, and all the answers to all the questions of his life.

    Silence and Carrion walked together, bound together by memories only they could share and understand. There was a time they'd tried to kill each other, over things they believed in and could not back down from, but that was over now.
    They had a common enemy and a common cause, and besides, they were friends, and always had been, even when they hated each other. Life's like that, sometimes.
    Silence hadn't traveled far into the Maze, that first time, and mostly what he remembered was his men dying around him in horrid ways. Now he could see the wonder and beauty of the place, the calm alien splendor of it all. He felt relaxed, welcomed; he was meant to be here, this time.
    It was Carrion's first time in the Maze, but he had the strangest feeling he'd been there before. There was something in the Maze that reminded him strongly of
    the time he'd spent on Unseeli, communing with the gentle spirits of the forest, the metallic trees and the Ashrai. He felt almost as though he'd returned there, to when the planet was still alive, and so was he.
    Silence and Carrion stopped suddenly, in a corridor no different than any other, and looked slowly around them, as though waking from a dream. A voice that was not a voice, but so much more, had sounded in their thoughts, and they knew they'd gone as far as they were going. The heart, and the hidden mysteries of the Maze, were not for them, this time. Theirs was a different destiny.
    "I feel almost insulted," said Carrion. "Owen gets all the answers, and we don't? Where do I go to complain?"
    "I don't think I want to see their complaints department," said Silence. "And I don't think I ever really wanted to know the answers to everything. I mean; what would you do, afterwards?"
    "You always did think small, John. So; why did we come here? We were summoned.
    We both felt it. We're supposed to be here."
    "Hush," said Silence. "Can you hear something? Something like… wings?"
    Slowly, they looked