Deathstalker 07 - Deathstalker Return

and the Madness Maze."
    "Except Shub," said Jesamine. "Shub will be waiting for us at the Maze. You can count on that."
    "They said they were expecting us," said Brett. "They said someone told them we'd be here today. Who could have known that, when we didn't even make up our minds to come here till the last minute?"
    "What do you say to that, Oz?" said Lewis. He waited, but there was no reply.
    "Let's ask Shub when we get there," said Rose. "I'll get some answers out of them."
    "You do that," said Brett. "And the rest of us will watch, from a safe distance."
    They left the empty town behind them, walked some more across the great stone plain, and finally they came to the Madness Maze. It had been excavated long ago, dug out of the deep bedrock of the old world, and now the Maze lay at the bottom of a great crater, hidden from view by an immense scaffolding supporting tons of bulky equipment, built around a solid steel bunker enclosing the Maze itself. A single curving pathway led down into the crater, carved into the inner stone wall. The crater seemed to grow larger and larger as Lewis and his party approached, like some awful wound in the surface of the world. The scaffolding looked like a cage built to contain some impossibly massive beast.
    The scientific base had taken decades to put together, and like everything else on Haden, it had to be constantly maintained, repaired, and rebuilt, as the dusty winds battered endlessly against it. Lewis and his people finally came to the top of the stairway, and there waiting for them was a single blue steel robot of Shub. It bowed its gleaming featureless head to them.
    "Welcome, Sir Deathstalker. We have waited so long for you to come here."
    "Don't the rest of us get a bow?" said Jesamine.
    The robot produced one more bow, for all of them. "Welcome Jesamine Flowers, Brett Random, Rose Constantine, Saturday. You are all known to us."
    "Well, that's a comfort," said Brett.
    "Now, follow me," said the robot, "and I will take you to the Maze."
    Brett studied the stairway, and then peered dubiously over the edge of the crater. "That is a long way down. Isn't there an elevator, or something?"
    "Not anymore. They couldn't be trusted. The dust gets everywhere. And besides, you'll feel the proximity of the Maze long before you get anywhere near it. The Maze affects everything here; the heart and the mind and the soul. As though it's the only real thing here, and we're all just shadows. The long descent on the stairs will allow you all time to acclimatize yourselves to the Maze's influence. We have tried teleporting people straight to the Maze. Most of them… reacted badly, so now we recommend the stairs. This is Haden, so we have to do things Haden's way."
    "What did the Empire scientists call this place?" said Lewis, looking out over the great crater.
    "They called it the Pit," said the robot.
    It set off down the stone stairway, and after a moment, the others followed. Lewis took the lead, with Saturday covering the rear. The steps were a good five feet wide, but there was no railing. Lewis kept his shoulder pressed to the inner wall, to keep from straying too close to the edge, and insisted the others keep to single file. It looked to be a really long way down. Lewis could hear Jesamine cursing away under her breath behind him, and the somewhat louder sound of Brett whimpering. Lewis was mostly just glad to be out of the direct attack of the wind.
    "Are we the first visitors you've had?" he said to the robot ahead of him, as much to make conversation as anything.
    The robot's head turned through one hundred and eighty degrees, so that it could look directly at Lewis while its body continued surefootedly down the steps.
    "Finn Durandal came here. We teleported him straight to the Maze. Surprisingly, its proximity didn't seem to affect him at all. Though it is hard to tell, with a delusional sociopath. He left us here to do his work, but we decided not to. Finn thought he'd gain more control over the Haden operation by giving us access, but now Shub controls all access to the Maze. Our research has replaced human research. We sent all the humans away; being here was bad for them."
    "Did you… kill them all?" said Brett, his voice rising just a little hysterically before dissolving into a coughing fit as the dust got to him.
    "No," said Shub. "We put them on their ships and sent them home. We do not kill. All that lives is holy."
    "What about those who didn't want to go?" said