Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

gardens, talking of other things, and later they had a good dinner together. When evening finally fell, Douglas gave his father a hug and then flew back to the city, and his Throne. Leaving peace and contentment behind, to take up the burden of his duty once again. Because every child has to leave home eventually, to become a man.
    Lewis Deathstalker was working in his apartment when the call came. An anonymous functionary called for Lewis to appear urgently at the House, and then signed off before he could be questioned. Lewis's first thought was Why now? Invitations to appear at Parliament had been conspicuous by their absence for some time now. The King had made it very clear he didn't need or want his Champion at his side anymore. And, this was a very inopportune moment to be called away. Lewis was sitting on the floor of his apartment, surrounded by paperwork, hunched over his computer screen and stabbing at the keyboard with two fingers. There was a lot of work to be done, preparing for the grand Quest of the Paragons, and somehow most of it had fallen to Lewis. The Paragons themselves had done nothing but argue about who was going where, ever since the Quest was announced, and someone had to sort out the mess without hurting too many feelings, and coordinate the various missions so that they wouldn't end up stumbling over each other.
    It helped that Lewis had been a Paragon, and knew most of them personally. He also knew where a lot of the bodies were buried; sometimes literally. No one argued with Lewis.
    Lewis had also contacted the AIs of Shub through their Embassy, and had them search through all their records, over where best to look for Owen. Or the others. After all; Owen might not be dead. Just because some mysterious voice had said Owen was dead, and Captain Silence had seemed inclined to believe it, didn't necessarily make it so. Lewis clung to that thought, with varying degrees of comfort.
    There had never been any shortage of sightings of Owen or Hazel or any of the other great legends, all across the Empire. Saint Beatrice in particular seemed to pop up all over the place, in every city on every planet, doing everything from healing the sick to shopping in a supermarket. People were always finding the likeness of her face in unlikely places. It was a lot of work, sorting out the few promising rumors from the more obvious cases of wishful thinking, while simultaneously trying to sort out which Paragons would go to which worlds, and in what order, but Lewis ended up quite enjoying it. The work kept him busy and kept him from brooding, and gave him a feeling of worth again. And for the first time in a long time he felt accepted by the Paragons again, as one of them. That made up for a lot.
    And as long as he kept himself busy, he didn't think about Jesamine for sometimes hours at a time.
    Sometimes.
    Still, when Parliament called, you answered. Even if it was bloody inconvenient. Lewis carefully saved his most recent work on the computer, pushed his notes together into more or less tidy piles, and clambered painfully to his feet. He stretched slowly, wincing as he heard bones click loudly. He really ought to get around to buying a desk and a chair, at least. Before his back gave out. He pulled on his official Champion's black leather armor, scowling furiously all the while, strapped on his weapons belt,
    looked around the room vaguely a few times, convinced as always that he'd forgotten something important, and then left his apartment. He scowled as he trudged up the stairs to the roof and his waiting gravity sled. Whatever Parliament wanted, it must be pretty important for them to recall him so urgently.
    Perhaps there was some new information on the Terror? The thought chilled his heart, and he ran up the last few steps and out onto the roof. He pushed his gravity sled as fast as it would go, all the way to the House. He tried to call in, but no one was answering. He was getting a really bad feeling about this.
    He should have known. He really should have known. Deathstalker luck. Always bad.
    Once at the House he hurried through the narrow corridors, intending to stop people as they passed, to get some idea of what was up. But the back corridors were unusually deserted, and the few people he encountered were apparently far too busy to stop and talk. At least they weren't crying this time . . . He wondered whether he should make the time to stop off at Anne's office and talk with her, but