Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

acquired rudimentary telepathy, and a limited but useful ability to compel other minds to do his will. He didn't use it much because it gave him killer headaches, but needs must when the devil vomits on your shoes. Very cautiously, he reached out to the minds around him, threading his compulsion delicately into their thoughts.
    "Mistworld…" Jesamine said dreamily.
    Lewis frowned. "The place does have strong connections to Owen and Hazel…"
    "Did anyone just hear something?" said Rose.
    Saturday turned his great head and looked straight at Brett. The con man quickly shut down his probe, and pulled his strongest mental shields into position. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised Rose picked up something, their minds had touched once, but Saturday… Did the reptiloid have some kind of esp too? Brett shuddered internally. As if the bloody lizard wasn't dangerous enough already… Brett hunkered down behind his shields and put on his most innocent expression. Rose was looking at him thoughtfully. Brett could feel cold beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
    "No, forget Mistworld," said Lewis. "Bad idea."
    "It seems obvious to me that we should go to Lachrymae Christi first," said Jesamine. "It's the one world where we can be sure of finding a living hero from the Great Rebellion. Tobias Moon is still there, even if no one has seen him in the flesh for ages. The last surviving Hadenman… Oh, I've always wanted to meet a Hadenman. They made such great villains in those old drama serials, fighting Julian Skye and all those other vid heroes. If anyone knows what happened to Owen, and Hazel, it's got to be Tobias Moon."
    "Good try," said Lewis. "But according to all the legends, even the apocrypha, Moon was the only one of the great heroes who never went to face the Recreated. He wasn't there when Owen and Hazel disappeared. There's no doubt he knows many things now lost to history, things that might well prove useful to us, but like you said, no one's set eyes on him in over a century. And the people on Lachrymae Christi are said to guard his privacy very jealously. We'd have a hard time getting to him, and no guarantee he'd be in any condition to give us helpful answers even if we did. No, I think there's someone else who's even better qualified to tell us what we need to know."
    "God, you're long-winded sometimes," said Jesamine. "Just say where you think we ought to go next!"
    "I don't care where we go," said Rose. "Just as long as I get to kill someone soon."
    "We go to Unseeli," said Lewis. "Because that's where we'll find the man called Carrion."
    Everyone looked at him. Jesamine nodded slowly. Brett put up his hand, like a child in class.
    "Excuse me? Do you think that perhaps you could let the rest of us in on this? Who the hell is Carrion? I have to say, the name alone doesn't exactly inspire confidence. And as for Unseeli—we are talking about the Ashrai here, aren't we? The alien species noted for killing anyone who tries to land on their planet uninvited, and there are no invitations? The only alien species in the Empire to tell the Empire to go to Hell and make it stick? That Unseeli? Am I the only sane person here?"
    Carrion was a friend of Captain John Silence," Lewis said calmly. He was there with the captain when the heroes faced the Recreated, out on the Rim. He went through the Madness Maze with the captain.
    He is the only great hero never to make it into the official legends. And it seems to me that someone like that might well know all kinds of things that also never made it into the official legends."
    "Carrion. Carrion…" Brett said thoughtfully. "You know, I think I have heard that name before. In the apocrypha… No, it was from a really old data crystal some alien was trying to sell in the Rookery. I never saw the contents myself, but Nikki did. Yes…Carrion. The human Ashrai. The only man ever to fly with the Ashrai. Hero, villian… monster. That Carrion?"
    "Sounds about right," said Lewis.
    "The Ashrai," Jesamine said dreamily. "Owen's dragons. I've always wanted to meet Owen's dragons.
    Oh, Lewis, darling, we have to go to Unseeli!"
    "Give me one good reason why they'd listen to us, when they blow up everyone else?" said Brett.
    "Because I'm a Deathstalker," said Lewis.
    And so it was decided. Lewis couldn't help feeling that he ought to be taking charge more, like his ancestor Owen always had, but this didn't seem to be that sort of group. He had no real authority over any