It was still raining, drumming loudly on the wooden roof. Owen and Hazel walked slowly across the uneven ground of the compound. The bodies were all gone, but the place itself was still a mess. Owen and Hazel took turns leaning on each other, their inner energies at an all-time low. For the time being, they were only human again, and they made the most of it. Everywhere they went, the lepers bowed and saluted and called out their names like prayers or hymns. Owen and Hazel smiled uncomfortably back, noting that for all their fervor, the lepers maintained a careful distance. Living legends were one thing; living gods were quite another.
Tobias Moon came to meet them. His eyes no longer glowed, and only the faintest buzz remained in his voice. He was moving beyond such things as the Maze continued to work its changes in him. There was a new serenity to him, a peacefulness of spirit, as though many things had at last become clear to him.
“I’m not going with you when you leave,” he said calmly. “I’m staying. The people here will need a lot of help rebuilding their Mission and their lives, and I think I could be of use. Until the espers learn how, I will be their contact with the Red Brain.” He shook his head slowly. “That was the most fascinating experience of my life. It’s been alone so long, just like me, the only one of its kind. And the lepers . . . perhaps it took the dying to teach me the meaning and value of life. Anyway, I’m staying. To guard the lepers, and be the voice of the jungle.”
“Never really thought of you as a gardener, Moon,” said Owen dryly, and Moon laughed politely. He was still working on humor.
Owen and Hazel walked on. Bonnie and Midnight were overseeing repairs on the other side of the compound, but they waved a hand in greeting. Owen and Hazel waved back. All was peaceful and serene, like the quiet after a storm has passed.
“Well,” said Owen finally. “We won another one.”
“Yeah,” said Hazel. “Came bloody close to losing it, though. If Moon hadn’t come through at the last minute, we could have died here. I really thought I’d lost you.”
“A salutary reminder that even we have limits,” said Owen. “That for all we can do, we’re still bound by merely human limitations. In a strange way I find that comforting. That for all our powers and abilities, we haven’t left humanity behind.”
Hazel sniffed loudly. “I didn’t find nearly bloody dying at all comforting. And let’s hope the jungle didn’t miss any Grendels. I couldn’t steal candy from a baby in my current condition. And that was always one of my best tricks.”
“Our strength will return eventually,” said Owen. “It always has before.” He stopped and looked around him, lost for a moment in memories. “So many died here. I wish we could have saved more.”
“William Hand and Otto,” said Hazel. “Sister Kathleen. They didn’t have our powers, but they did just as much to save the Mission as we did. They were the real heroes here.”
“Of course,” said Owen. “They were all heroes here, the living and the fallen. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment in the communications center. They’re trying to get a ship for us so we can get off-planet. Lachrymae Christi may be safe now, but the rest of the Empire is still in deep trouble.”
“Now, that is typical of you, Deathstalker,” said Hazel. “You’ve barely got over nearly dying, twice, and already you’re talking about charging back into battle again. Aren’t we entitled to some time off ?”
“Sure,” said Owen. “When the war’s over.”
“The wars are never over,” said Hazel. “Not for us.”
Owen put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her. “You’d be bored in a week, and you know it.”
“Maybe. I really thought I’d lost you, Owen. Don’t you ever do that again.”
“Never,” said Owen. “We’re a team. Nothing’s ever going to separate us.”
“Promise me we’ll always be together. Forever.”
“Forever and ever. Even death can’t part us now.”
He kissed her again, and moved off toward the communications center. Hazel watched him go for a while, and then turned away and looked out over the compound. People were slowly filling in the deep gashes and craters in the ground. The outer wall was being raised again, section by section. The battle was over, and life went on. Hazel felt strangely left out. Maybe Owen was right, and all they knew how to be was warriors.
And then someone called her name, in a familiar voice but hoarse and filled with pain. She looked around, and there was Owen, leaning against the side of a hut. He looked like hell, deathly tired, face gaunt, his clothes stained and bloodied. It took a moment for Hazel to realize that they weren’t the gray clothing of the lepers. It was the same clothes Owen had been wearing when he appeared out of nowhere to save her life on Virimonde. He was looking at her with such loss and longing, and he held out a hand to her, as though trying to warn her of something. She started toward him, and a sudden horror filled his face. She took another step toward him, and a silver shimmering energy field appeared around her, pinning her on the spot. She beat on the energy field with her fists, and it spat static, discharging loudly through the broken earth, but the field didn’t weaken at all. And she had no power left to break it. She called out to Owen to help her, but he was gone.
Owen Deathstalker came running out of the communications center. He’d heard her call his name, even from so far away. He saw her standing trapped in the shimmering energy field, and recognized it immediately. The Blood Runners of the Obeah Systems had used it once before to try to kidnap Hazel, claiming she owed them her body for experiments, to pay off a debt incurred by her Captain back when she was still a clonelegger. Owen had saved her then by breaking the field, but now he didn’t have the power.
He ran toward her, pulling the disrupter from his holster. Hazel was still struggling inside the field, but her image was growing fainter as the field disappeared, taking her with it. Bonnie Bedlam and Midnight Blue were running across the compound too, heading for the shimmering field.
Strange figures appeared around the silver energies. Tall and willowy, albinos with milk white hair and bloodred eyes. They wore long robes of swirling colors, their faces ritually scarred in vicious patterns. Blood Runners. They laughed soundlessly at Owen and then disappeared, taking the energy field and Hazel with them.
Owen cried out in horror and stumbled to a halt, looking at the empty place where Hazel had been. He heard the flat sound of air rushing in to fill a space where something had been a moment before, and looked around to see that Bonnie and Midnight had disappeared too. Without Hazel to maintain their presence, they couldn’t stay. They no longer had anything to link them to this universe. Owen felt numb, paralyzed with shock. Hazel was gone, in the hands of torturers, and he had no way to reach her, no idea where they’d taken her. She could be anywhere in the Obeah Systems. And he didn’t even have a ship to get him off the planet. He’d never felt so helpless.
Owen Deathstalker, the conqueror of armies and toppler of Empires, and he couldn’t even save the one he loved.
Hang in there, Hazel. I’m coming for you. Somehow I’ll find you, whatever it takes. And if they’ve hurt you, I’ll drown the whole Obeah Systems in blood.
Owen Deathstalker will return one last time in
Deathstalker Destiny.