Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

they all had to look away. The intensity slowly faded, and when they looked again they saw a single figure standing in the spotlight, held in place like a moth on a pin. He was tall and sparely built, with muscular arms. He had a solid, lined face, with a silver gray goatee beard, his long hair pulled back in a scalp lock. He wore a set of battered, shapeless furs, bunched at the waist by a wide leather belt. He wore thick golden armlets, and heavy silver rings on his fingers. He bore a heavy sword on one hip, and a gun of unfamiliar design on the other. He looked fierce and dangerous, cold and determined, and every inch a Deathstalker.
    "My God," said Jesamine. "It's Giles."
    "Ghosts," said Brett. "I told you…"
    "Shut up, Brett," said Lewis. He studied his coldly smiling ancestor for a long moment, and then extended his hand with the ring and thrust it into the light. It felt freezing cold, painfully cold, but he held the hand steady. "I am Lewis Deathstalker."
    "I know you are," said Giles. "I heard you the first time."
    The spotlight snapped off, leaving them all blinking. Lewis snatched back his hand. The holo figure of Giles, if that was all it was, looked at everyone in the group—including Guide, still shrinking away in his corner—and sighed loudly before turning his attention back to Lewis. "I'm not your ancestor, boy. I am all that remains of the computers who once ran this Standing, speaking to you through the image of Giles Deathstalker. Thought it might make this easier for both of us. Two hundred years and more since anyone came calling, to disturb my rest. Should have known only really bad news would bring anyone back here. Why were you outlawed, Lewis?"
    "For loving the wrong woman," Lewis said steadily. "And for speaking out against evil."
    "Yes, that sounds familiar," said Giles. "I suppose I should ask what's become of the Family, but since
    I'm not really Giles, I don't think I really care. You bear the ring; that's all that matters."
    "Hey, hold on," said Brett. "Anyone could just walk in here with that ring on, and claim they were a Deathstalker."
    Giles glared at him, and Brett immediately went back to hiding behind Rose. "No, they couldn't," said Giles. "The ring is coded to the Deathstalker line, and it has all kinds of nasty tricks built into it to take care of imposters."
    Lewis deliberately didn't look down at the ring on his finger, but an icy chill caressed the back of his neck for a moment. If his family line had been just a little further distanced from the main line… He made himself smile easily at Giles, even though he found talking to the original Deathstalker more than a little disturbing, given the bad end Giles eventually came to. He wondered if the computers knew.
    "We come here in need," he said carefully. "Not just ours, but all Humanity's. The Empire is endangered.
    The Terror has finally found us. We need to locate the missing Owen Deathstalker and Hazel d'Ark. Can you assist us?"
    Giles scowled. "The Terror… I know things about the Terror, though I don't know how I know them.
    And I know things about Owen, and what he found at the hidden heart of the Madness Maze, that no one else knows. A voice came and told me these things, two hundred years ago, after the defeat and restoration of the Recreated. It told me that Humanity must evolve, achieve its full potential, because something awful was coming, from far beyond our galaxy. The Terror. It is not life as we know it, but far more. It eats souls, and its young incubate in the hearts of suns. It brings madness and suffering, and the death of all that lives. The Terror is one and many, both and neither; an extradimensional creature beyond our understanding, and all of space and time is its prey. As flies to wanton boys, are we to the Terror."
    "We're dead," said Brett.
    "How do we stop it?" said Lewis. "We tried sending people through the Madness Maze centuries ago. It killed them all."
    "Maybe they weren't the right people," Giles said indifferently. "I know more about the Maze. Do you want to hear it?"
    "Do we have a choice?" said Brett.
    "Not really," said Giles. "At the heart of the Madness Maze lies a great secret: the Darkvoid Device."
    "That's it!" said Jesamine. "The Darkvoid Device snuffed out hundreds of stars and their planetary systems in a moment! That's the weapon we need to stop the Terror!"
    "It's not a weapon," said Giles. "It's a child. My child, transformed and empowered in the Maze. As a baby, he