Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

And finally the two withered homunculi of the Spider Harps just snapped out of existence, like a popped soap bubble. Only one figure now remained, bathed in icy flames like a clay shape being recast in a kiln. And when it was all over, and the cold fires had died away, there stood just a single figure, a short blond woman who shone like the sun. Diana looked at her blankly as the oversoul’s attack cut off.
    “Who the hell are you? Where did the uber-espers go?”
    “Back inside me, where they belong,” said the new woman, in a flat, measured voice. She rolled her head around and flexed her shoulders, as though it had been a long time since she’d been in a body. “I should thank you, Diana Vertue, and the oversoul. The pressure of your attack brought about what I’ve been unable to achieve for hundreds of years. You put me back together again.”
    “The uber-espers—all of them—they were just parts of you?” said Diana.
    “I went through the Madness Maze, a long, long time ago, and it split me apart into five separate subpersonalities, because that was the only way I could cope with what I found there. Greetings to you, King Douglas and Emperor Finn. I am Alicia VomAcht Deathstalker. I am finally back, and all the worlds that are shall tremble before me.”
    “This is not good,” said Finn.
    “You think?” said Douglas.
    The sheer force of Alicia’s presence seemed to fill the court, pressing against the far walls and shuddering in the floor. It pushed Diana’s presence aside effortlessly, and both Douglas and Finn had to fight an urge to kneel and bow their heads. They felt as though they didn’t belong in the court, like vermin in the gaze of a living goddess. The oversoul was silent in Diana’s head, struck dumb by this turn of events. Even their best precogs hadn’t sensed this coming. The entire mass-mind of the oversoul looked upon the restored, incandescent mind of Alicia VomAcht Deathstalker, and was afraid. She smiled slowly upon Diana.
    “We have met before. When you manifested the Mater Mundi, all those years ago, that was part of me. I was spread far and wide by the Maze, torn apart into grotesque subpersonalities, crude representatives of my various needs and functions, but I always had an agenda.”
    “Who . . . were you?” said Douglas, fighting to get the words out. “How did you become . . . the uber-espers?”
    “What?” said Alicia. “You mean the oversoul never told you about the mad old aunt they kept in the attic? I am the beginning of the esper movement. They all have their root in me. I was one of the group of scientists who first discovered the Madness Maze, in a cavern deep inside Haden, centuries and centuries ago. I was an esper, one of the very first. I found others, bound them to my will, and forced them to go through the Maze with me. My intention was to produce a mighty esper gestalt, with me in total control, but . . . the Maze wasn’t what I thought it was. It tried to change me, remake me . . . and I couldn’t have that. I fought it, but the effort broke me. Tore me apart into the uber-espers and the driving force in the mass unconscious of the other espers, who became the esper underground. Later, they called me the Mater Mundi, Mother of All Souls. Even scattered and separated I was a force in the history of mankind. Now I’m back, and steeped in my true power again.
    “I like this new mass gestalt you call the oversoul. So brightly shining, so very tasty. Why, I could just eat it all up.”
    Alicia VomAcht Deathstalker withdrew her controlling presence from the thrall armies, to gather all her power in one place for one purpose, and all across the Parade of the Endless, no longer possessed men and women and children fell limply to the ground and lay still. Eyes open, still breathing, but utterly empty. Alicia would reoccupy them later, after she’d finished with more pressing business. Fighting stopped in the city, as exhausted and bloody men and women slowly lowered their weapons and looked uncertainly about them. A great cheer went up, that the war was over and they had survived. They didn’t know about Alicia. The various fighting groups came together as they headed for the heart of the city, and the Imperial Palace. The acclaimed greatest hero of the fighting, Gil Akotai, led the way.
    Above the Imperial Palace, the vast floating city of New Hope manifested, its glass and silver towers shining like an impossibly huge snowflake. The people