Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

fell. “You haven’t heard. I’m sorry. Anne Barclay is dead. Killed by falling masonry when Douglas busted out of his show trial and escaped. He was ever so upset about it. But the good news is that Douglas has made himself the leader of all rebel activity in the Rookery, and absolutely everyone is with him! He’s so inspiring. All the rogues, con men, fighters, and criminals have combined into one great army, under his command. They’re calling Douglas the King of Thieves these days, which is just so romantic! Did you want to speak to him? I’m sure I could set up something really quite quickly.”
    Lewis and Jesamine looked at each other for a long moment. “Not just yet,” said Jesamine.
    “I don’t think any of us would know what to say,” said Lewis. “It’s enough that we’re allies, for the moment.”
    “Yes,” said Jesamine. “Just tell him . . . we’ll talk again, when we all meet in the Imperial Palace, on Logres.”

    Back in their private quarters, Lewis and Jesamine sat in silence for a long while. They kept a cautious distance between them, separated by old memories and old hurts. The prospect of actually talking to Douglas had opened up feelings they’d been too busy to examine or even acknowledge, for far too long. Once upon a time there had been four good friends, Douglas and Lewis, Jesamine and Anne, bonded together by love and loyalty, determined to change the world for the better. But instead the world had changed them, shattering their fellowship; and now one of them was dead, and things would never be the same again.
    “I can’t believe Anne is gone,” Jesamine said finally. “She was always the great survivor. I thought she’d outlast all of us.”
    “I still can’t believe she let Finn get to her,” said Lewis. “She was the smartest of all of us; if anyone should have seen through Finn, it should have been her. Why did she turn on us? We all did everything we could for her . . . and she betrayed each of us, in turn. There are even rumors surfacing that she had something to do with Emma Steel’s death.”
    “Perhaps . . . Finn listened to her,” said Jesamine. “And perhaps we didn’t listen enough. There were hints, towards the end, that she wasn’t happy, and hadn’t been for some time. That maybe we never understood her half as well as we thought we did.”
    “Anne and I were kids together on Virimonde,” said Lewis. “We did everything together. I thought we’d be friends till the day we died. We would have fought for each other, died for each other; and then . . . something changed. Perhaps we grew up. Grew apart. I always believed that when I finally got back to Logres, and overthrew Finn, I’d be able to talk her round. Bring her back to sense and sanity. Apologize for whatever it was I did wrong that drove her away from me. And now I never will.”
    “She was the best friend and manager I ever had,” said Jesamine. “But she always made her own choices, and insisted on going her own way. Even when everyone who cared about her could see it was the wrong way. You know, she’s the first person close to me that I’ve lost in this war. I feel . . . cold.”
    “I lost my mother and my father, my Family and my home,” said Lewis. “That’s the nature of war: to lose all the things you care for most.”
    “We still have each other,” said Jesamine, looking at him for the first time.
    “Yes,” said Lewis. He smiled at her, but secretly he was thinking Deathstalker luck. Always bad.
    “When we get back,” said Jesamine, tentatively. “When we’re back on Logres, and it’s all over . . . what are we going to do, Lewis? About Douglas, about us?”
    “He was always my closest friend,” said Lewis.
    “He was my fiancé.”
    “But did you ever really love him?”
    “I never meant to hurt him,” said Jesamine. “He was a good man, a fine man. He deserved better than what we did to him.”
    “I always believed I would tear my own heart out, rather than see Douglas hurt,” said Lewis. “As his Champion, I vowed to stand between him and all harm. He was my friend, closer than a brother. And I hurt him like no one else could.”
    “The things we do for love,” Jesamine said tiredly. “How can something so good cause so much pain?”
    “Ah, hell,” Lewis said, stretching slowly. “It seems like another life now. We were all different people then. If we do survive this war, all three of us . . . we still couldn’t go back to our old