Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

work."
    "You admit it?"
    "Why not? I'm not telling you anything you don't already know or suspect. And it's not like anyone will ever listen to you . . . You see, Roland, under you and your sort, the Church was never more than a wasted opportunity. No real power, no real influence, just a few woolly philosophies and a rather tiresome preoccupation with the Madness Maze. You had the ear of the King, the attention of Parliament, and the respect of the people; but you never did anything with them. You had no fire, no passion; no ambition. I have remade the Church in my own image, put some iron in its soul, and already it is a power base to be reckoned with. When I speak, the King listens, Parliament shudders, and the people rush to obey. The cry is now; ask not what your Church can do for you, but what you can do for your Church. And it never ceases to amuse me what people will do in the name of religion. They'll hate and fight and kill, and do all sorts of vile and nasty things they wouldn't even dream of doing for any other cause. And I will give them the Madness Maze, eventually. God knows how many thousands or even millions of poor deluded fools I'll have to march through the damned thing to find out how it works; but then, it's only ever been a short step from a fanatic to a martyr. And the Church has never been short of either."
    "I'll stop you," said the Patriarch. "I will stop this madness. This evil. Whatever it takes."
    "No you won't," said Angelo. "Your day is over, Roland. Good-bye."
    His hand moved almost casually to a single isolated control on his desk, and the transmutation bomb concealed under the seat of the Patriarch's chair detonated with a soundless explosion. It was really quite a small bomb, with a strictly defined blast radius, but it was very efficient. Sleeting energies slammed up into the Patriarch, ripping him apart at the genetic level. He cried out once, a harsh guttural sound of shock and pain and horror, but he never took his eyes off Angelo Bellini. His lower body collapsed in on
    itself, losing all shape and definition. His lap and waist transformed, slumping from flesh and bone into thick jelly, and then into a viscous pink protoplasmic slime, all in a few moments. His legs detached and fell away, already melting into more of the pink sludge as they sank slowly into the thick carpeting.
    The Patriarch's torso dropped down into the mess in the chair where his lap had been, and also began to transmute. His hands clutched spasmodically at nothing. Roland Wentworth was still alive. His heart still beat, his mouth still worked, though no sound came out of it. And his eyes were horribly aware. Angelo Bellini leaned forward across his desk, studying the Patriarch's slow and awful death with hot, greedy eyes. Wentworth's chest jerked down again as his stomach disappeared, and then again, as his ribs dissolved, one after the other. The transmutation energies finally reached the Patriarch's heart and destroyed it, and the light went out of his eyes. His arms fell away from his shoulders, hit the slime on the carpet, and slowly came apart. Roland Wentworth's head slumped forward onto what remained of his chest. A few moments later, only the head was left on the chair, and then that too was gone, and all that remained of the Patriarch of the true Church were long thick strands of pink protoplasmic slime, dripping slowly from the visitor's chair, and onto the expensive carpet.
    "I never liked you," said Angelo Bellini. "Mealy-mouthed little snot. I'll make a much better Patriarch."
    He settled back in his chair, breathed deeply, and then laughed suddenly. "Now this ... this is power. I could get to like this." He activated the comm panel set into his desk, and called his secretary. "Miss Lyle; send in the cleaners, would you? I'm afraid my late visitor made something of a mess."
    Douglas Campbell, King of the Empire, Speaker to Parliament, and latest of a long line of heroes, pulled on his royal robes and checked his makeup in his dressing room mirror. With so many media cameras covering the Houses Sessions these days it was vital that he looked his best. He scowled at his receding hairline, stuck out his tongue, winced at the sight of it, and reluctantly put it away again. He wasn't getting enough sleep these days, and it showed. But the work just kept coming, there was never any end to the paperwork, and he couldn't justify hiring any more assistants. He already had trouble remembering all the