Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

Shub, apparently, and wasn't considered worth salvaging.
    But whatever survived the crash might still contain useful information. No one else knows that. No one has been near it in two hundred years. Partly because we're the only ones who know exactly where to look for it, and mostly because Shandrakor is even more hazardous now than it was in Owen's day. Not many people remember this now, but all the monsters created by Shub and the Mater Mundi and the Hadenmen and Lionstone's laboratories were rounded up and dumped on Shandrakor, after the Rebellion was over. I guess someone decided that was kinder than just killing them all. God knows how many of them might still be alive down there, or what their descendants have become. All anyone knows for sure is that Shandrakor today is just what that bloody world has always been; an endless, vicious killing ground.
    "Word is the Transmutation Board would love to wipe it clean, just on general principles, but Robert and Constance personally declared the place off limits. It's a sanctuary for all the creatures they dumped there, protected by a Quarantine starcruiser, and no one's ready to overturn Robert and Constances decision. Public wouldn't stand for it. I can give you the exact coordinates where the castle crashed, if that's any use to you. But I have to say; it's a hell of a long shot, and a bloody dangerous one at that."
    "I don't seem to have many options," said Lewis. "Thanks, Dad. And Dad . . . I'm sorry I let you down.
    Let the family down."
    "You didn't," Roland said sharply. "They let you down. After everything you did for them, all the times you put your life on the line to clear up the messes they made . . . they had no right to treat you this way.
    They weren't worthy of you, Lewis."
    "Thanks, Dad." Lewis would have liked to say more, but he didn't trust his voice to stay steady. Tears burned his eyes.
    "Do what you have to do, son. And come home when you can."
    "I always ... I just wanted you to be proud of me, Dad."
    "I always have been, Lewis. You're my son. And a Deathstalker."
    Lewis waited till night fell to break into the Bloody Tower. He'd been rather surprised to discover that Jesamine was being kept in Traitor's Hall. It wasn't exactly a maximum security prison. It was once, of course, in Lionstone's day and before. You could be sent to the Bloody Tower for all kinds of reasons, back then. You went in dragging chains, and you came out in a coffin. No exceptions. The spilled blood had soaked so deeply into the stones in some places that it could never be removed. Place was supposed to be crawling with ghosts.
    Now it was little more than a tourist trap, with guided tours and souvenir stalls; one of the great sights of the Parade of the Endless. Still, it was undoubtedly surrounded by whole armies of guards by now, if only to keep the media out. Certainly no one would expect Lewis to try and break in on his own, to free Jesamine; so that was exactly what he was going to do.
    The Bloody Tower hadn't been used as an actual prison since Lionstone had been overthrown, and all the political prisoners freed. It was one of the few relics of that awful time that still survived, preserved now because the building was deemed to be of great architectural importance. Most of the other old prisons and detention centers had been burned down by furious mobs, but the Bloody Tower had survived almost unscathed, because it was too big and too strong and too solid for the fires to do any real damage. And while a great many others were officially demolished, to appease the sorrow and rage of all the people who'd seen too many friends and family disappear into Lionstone's dungeons, never to be seen again, the Bloody Tower escaped destruction because Robert and Constance wanted it kept; as a reminder.
    These days, the Bloody Tower was run and maintained by a small group of historical enthusiasts who acted as guards and curators, complete with historically accurate uniforms. The tourists loved it.
    Especially Traitors Wing, where those who particularly displeased Lionstone spent their last few hours before facing execution on Traitor's Block, before the assembled crowds. Ghosts were said to be really thick on the ground there, strolling around with their heads tucked securely under their arms, freaking out lone guards in the early hours.
    The more Lewis thought about it, the less it made sense. If they'd put Jesamine in a real prison, under maximum security, behind