Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

silent, remembering.
    “Just like old times, eh?” Finn said finally.
    “Not really, no,” said Douglas.
    “We had some good times here,” said Finn, almost reproachfully.
    “That was a long time ago, when we were very different people.”
    “You might have been different,” said Finn. “I’ve always been just me. Though perhaps I’m a little more open about it these days. Do you like what I’ve done with the palace?”
    “I hate it,” said Douglas, not looking at Finn.
    “You never did have any taste. I’ve done wonders with the place. A real makeover.”
    “It is very you. But don’t worry. Once I’ve taken it back, I’ll have cleaners working in shifts for weeks. No one will know you were ever here.”
    There was another long silence. So many unspoken words burned between them, of betrayal and murder and crimes beyond counting, but somehow that wasn’t what they wanted to talk about. They had been friends, once.
    “When this is all over,” Douglas said slowly, “you could surrender to me. I can guarantee a life sentence in prison, rather than execution. For old times’ sake.”
    “Prison would be death, to me,” said Finn. “You could surrender to me, but I wouldn’t advise it. I have all kinds of appalling things planned for you, if we both survive this. If . . . I do try to be optimistic, but it isn’t easy. Things never go the way you expect, do they?”
    “No,” said Douglas. “They don’t.”
    “So,” said Finn. “You’re the King of Thieves now. I’m Emperor. You never did think big enough.”
    “I was granted my title by popular acclaim. You stole yours.”
    “Best way,” Finn said cheerfully.
    Douglas turned and looked at him. “How could you, Finn? How could you do all the things you’ve done? All the terrible things . . .”
    “It was easy,” said Finn. “I just stopped pretending I cared. That’s always been your weakness, Douglas. You do things for others; I do them for myself.”
    “No. That’s my strength. You never did understand that. It’s why my people stand and fight, and yours run away.”
    “But I run an Empire, while you only have part of a city. It’s a vision thing, Douglas.”
    “How could I have been so wrong about you? We were friends, partners, comrades in arms for so many years . . . I thought I knew you.”
    “A lot of people have made that mistake,” said Finn Durandal.
    And that was when the uber-espers appeared, all at once, teleporting into the open space of the abandoned court, dropping into reality like so many rotten fruit. They all came at once, because none of them trusted any of the others to come alone. The temperature in the great hall plummeted as the materialization sucked all the heat out of the surrounding air. Douglas and Finn both shuddered involuntarily, not entirely from the cold. Finn rose up off his Throne, gun in hand, and Douglas stood at his side, gun at the ready.
    Psionic energies discharged around the uber-espers in coruscating lightning forks, and crawled along the walls like bright actinic ivy. The uber-espers’ presence hammered on the air, like a corpse at a wedding, like bad news in a maternity ward, like the cancer growth your doctor shows you on the scan. Five old and terrible monsters, come to Court at last, to claim it for themselves.
    The Gray Train. Blue Hellfire. Screaming Silence. The Spider Harps. The Shatter Freak.
    Blue Hellfire was tall and slender and the most visibly human, wrapped in diaphanous silks over blue-white flesh beneath. Her short spiky hair was packed with ice, and hoarfrost made whorled patterns on her corpse-pale face. Her eyes and lips were the pale blue of hypothermia. She looked like someone who had been buried in the permafrost for centuries, and only recently dug up. She smiled terribly on the King and Emperor, sucking all the remaining heat out of the air around her. She stepped slowly forward, one pace at a time, inexorable as a glacier. Her clothes made sounds like cracking ice as she moved, and she left a trail of burning footprints behind her.
    The Gray Train no longer had a body, as such. He only existed as an individual identity through an ongoing concentrated effort of will. He manifested as a cloud of gray flakes that held a more or less human form, composed of dust and detritus gathered from his surroundings. He was only a memory of what he used to be, and if his concentration ever slipped, he wouldn’t even be that. But there was still a power in him,