Deathstalker 06 - Deathstalker Legacy

hell wasn't going to try and fight Finn Durandal. Even if he'd been the fighting kind.
    Which he wasn't.
    "You're going away for a long time," said Finn. "To a really bad place, full of really bad people. Unless .
    .. you come with me, now. Serve me. Be my man. Follow me, and I'll make you rich. Betray me, and I'll kill you. Your choice."
    Brett couldn't believe it. A Paragon, and this one of all Paragons, offering to make a deal? Offering to bend, even break the law? It had to be some kind of trap. But, given the position he was in ...
    "I'm your man," said Brett, smiling and bowing graciously. "How may I serve you?"
    "By doing exactly what I tell you," said Finn Durandal. "Obey me in all things, and you will live to see me destroy all those who have spurned me. You will help me tear down the Empire, and rebuild it in my image."
    Okay, thought Brett. He's crazy. That explains a lot. No problem; I can work with crazy. Until be turns his back, and then I am gone. I know places to hide that a Paragon doesn't even know exists.
    "I'm your man, Finn Durandal," he said again, radiating sincerity.
    They were both long gone by the time the security men arrived. Who knew more about the Court's secret ways than the Paragon charged with its defense?
    Later still, when the Court was utterly empty, the man who'd been playing St. Nicholas stood alone on
    the raised dais, looking out over the deserted hall. The Santa Claus suit lay discarded on the floor, and out of the coat and padding, the man inside looked very different. Tall, lean, and surprisingly average-looking. He'd gone to great pains, down the years, to cultivate his anonymity. Samuel Chevron, merchant trader, might be a famous force in the marketplace, but hardly anyone knew what he looked like, and he liked it that way. Because Samuel Chevron wasn't the name he'd been born with.
    He looked out over the empty Court and remembered another, much older Court. Remembered the awful place the Empress Lionstone XIV had made of her Court, in its steel bunker sunk deep in the earth. Remembered blood and suffering, revolution and triumph, and Lionstone's death. Because the man who wasn't Samuel Chevron was much older than he looked.
    He'd never thought to live so long, to see the ruins of a devastated Empire slowly blossom into a Golden Age. He wished his old friends and comrades in arms could have lived to see it too. Douglas looked like he'd make a good King. The man who was so much more than Samuel Chevron sighed, deeply, and wondered if perhaps he could finally retire from his self-proclaimed role as watcher over Humanity.
    Perhaps, just perhaps, they didn't need him anymore. He'd been a hero once, but that was a long time ago, when things were very different. There were new heroes now. Even a new Deathstalker . . .
    And he ... was just a ghost at the feast.
    Owen; I wish you could have seen this . . .

Chapter 2
    MAKING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE
    Parliament was the bedrock of Human politics, the solid center of law and justice around which the great wheel of Empire turned. All important decisions flowed from the great debates on the floor of Parliament, establishing a legal and moral framework for all Humankind to live by, no matter how scattered they might be across the wide breadth of the modern Empire. The people knew this to be true, because Parliament told them it was so. In fact, there was an entire department, with a very large budget funded entirely by Parliament, whose job it was to tell the people of the Empire what a great job their Members were doing for them. After all, how would the people know they were living in a Golden Age, if the media didn't keep reminding them?
    Nothing was actually hidden from the people. The facts were all there, good and bad, in open record.
    But unless you knew where to look, and the right questions to ask, and the right people to ask, and the context to put their answers in, the information you got wouldn't actually mean much to you. So most people didn't bother. The professionals in Parliament knew what they were doing. They must; it was a Golden Age, wasn't it?
    The Members of Parliament met in a single great House, a familiar and much beloved sight in the Parade of the Endless. Designed two centuries ago by the most prominent and respected designer of King Robert's time, the House was an immense gleaming edifice of steel and glass, its long cool organic curves rising and falling in gentle waves that were striking, but still